


Not for TV

by viaorel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, Religious Fanaticism, fanon The Hales
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:58:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viaorel/pseuds/viaorel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is the host of a tabloid talk show and is damn proud of helping people, even if in such a bizarre manner, but Derek, a religious cult survivor prone to stigmatizing, strongly disagrees. (Inspired by the Jerry Springer show.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Art by the lovely bravekate.tumblr.com

“What are you doing in here?” a security guy barks at him. “Get your ass back, we’re starting in five.”

Stiles rolls his eyes and then looks at the unlit cigarette in his hand. “Sorry, baby, looks like I’m going to ask for a raincheck. Call you later? All right, see you soon, sweet cheeks.”

The guy casts him a strange look, but says nothing. He’s new on the team and hasn’t yet developed a strategy to deal with Stiles when he pulls weird shit like that, but it’s all right, he’ll get around. They always do.

When they step out of the smoking-room and walk along a dark narrow corridor, Stiles can hear music and voices muffled by firm doors – other studios, other stories. His stories are better, he thinks, because they really are. Who in their right mind would willingly tune on a show where they discuss all the weepy details of a cancer survivor’s life? In his show, women who are not actually women down there indulge into crazy-ass catfights, ripping each other’s wigs off their heads and showing their fake boobs to the raving public. It’s perfect.

“The hair, Stilinski?” screeches Lydia the make-up artist when she sees him. “You touched the freaking hair again? Unbelievable!” She then grabs him by the tie, regardless of the perfect angle she managed to set it at before, and sits him firmly down on the chair before the mirror in his dressing room. “Damn you, Stilinski,” she hisses and gets to work.

Her hands are small and pretty, but she can smack damn hard with these bad boys, Stiles ponders while sitting absolutely still because that’s rule number one of working with Lydia – you sit and forget that you need to breathe for a couple of minutes when she is working her magic.

The producer’s face pops in.

“Hey, you ready in here?”

“Shut up, Jackson,” Lydia spits out. She is hunched over Stiles’ face with some make-up thingy he doesn’t care to know the name of and does something with his forehead. She looks really scary in such close proximity.

“Okay,” Jackson drawls, “but we’re starting in, like, one and a half minutes, and it’s live, so. . .”

Jackson the producer seems really chilled about the whole thing, which means he is in Mode 2 right now. Usually he has two modes: Mode 1 – being a dick to everyone around, especially Stiles, and Mode 2 – sporting a Zen-like calmness due to being overly acquainted with anti-depressant pills. The issue would have been addressed a long time ago if not for the fact that Jackson the producer happens to be the son of a bigger boss here on this very channel. Stiles actually likes Jackson in Mode 2 because when his producer is playing space cadet, Stiles can get away with a lot of crap he says on camera, but at the same time Mode 2 brings disarray to the crew and if something goes terribly wrong due to Jackson’s negligence, they all will get it.

“You’re ready to go,” Lydia finally says and motions him to get up. “Now turn around a little bit. Aha, aha. . . Okay, Stilinski, you seem all right, but I’m warning you,” at some point she grabbed a comb from the dressing table and is now pointing it at his nose with a very scary face on, “if you dare touch your hair again, I will make you swallow this and then shit it out and eat it again. Capisce?”

“Thirty seconds,” says Jackson in a voice that suggests great relaxation and general it’s-all-goodness. He almost gets Stiles fooled into chilling as well, but the comb gets the better of him.

“Coming!” he chirrups and leaves the dressing room.

Allison the technical director checks his microphone and hands him the clipboard with _Stiles Stilinski_ written on it. He darts through the names written on the other side: today he’s got a teenage girl who has enhanced her breasts in order for her step dad to like her, a couple of transvestite men who play pranks on players in bars and then post the videos online, and a wedding with a bride who weighs 600 pounds and can barely walk.

“All present?”

“Yes,” Allison says calmly. She’s always calm, but for a different reason than Jackson. She is just nice. “Contracts signed, rules laid out, bride fed, it’s all good, Stiles. Now go and bring it to them.”

She gives him a friendly push on the shoulder, which is surprisingly strong for a skinny girl like her, but Stiles stopped wondering after two years of seeing bruises all over her boyfriend’s body. He smiles at her and wants to top it off with something funny, but there is no time – the heavy music starts roaring from the studio and he can hear the crowd chanting his name madly. They all want him.

So he comes. He slides down the pole, which is his usual routine and is not weird at all, straightens up his smart suit and shows the world his sweetest smile. The audience goes mad, like they usually do, and he finishes them when he comes closer and starts giving away handshakes and personal winks like a regular TV whore. Finally the deafening noise settles down a little bit, and he jumps to his usual place at the stairs. He feels great: all the eyes are on him, those here and on the other side of the camera, the greedy eyes, the longing eyes, and he feels so young it hurts, he feels deft, and slick, and fast, and silver-tongued.

“Hello, America, and welcome to the Stiles Stilinski show! Tonight is a special night – you at home will be able to witness the exact same amount of the show as these guys in the studio because we’re airing live tonight, folks! Shoo your kids away from the screen, it is going to get crazy spicy tonight.”

There is a loud cheer behind his back, and Stiles stifles a happy giggle. He can’t giggle, not on live TV – Mister Whittemore specifically told him that after the first couple of times went past him due to Jackson’s mind being on long vacation.

“You look dumb when you do that,” that’s what the big boss said, and Stiles agreed because you can’t disagree with the big boss who is sitting in an expensive leather chair and looking at you like you’re some scumbag from the street who wandered in the building in hope for some free burger.

So Stiles does not giggle – he’s stronger than his urges, three years of fruitless lusting after Lydia the make-up artist has proven that all right. He actually looks quite composed, judging from Danny the cameraman’s approving face. Danny the cameraman has always been his detector of going overboard: whenever he raises his right eyebrow, it means that Stiles’ pun is either too intelligent for his regular audience or simply bad, his left eyebrow movement indicates that Stiles is touching his hair again and Lydia will feast on his guts later on; the downward smile signals that Stiles is taking too long to get to the point; a head shake means that Stiles should stop touching his lips, which he does even more often than his hair. All in all, Danny the cameraman is a great guy and a life-saver.

“And tonight we have a special treat for you,” Stiles continues with an enticing smile. “Our first guest is here to complain about her daughter’s unusual behavior, not at all typical for a normal teenage girl. Please welcome-”

 

“It was great,” Allison says, hopping on the free chair beside him. “You talked a little bit faster than usual, but you didn’t touch your hair once. Was it a sweet gesture to win Lydia back?”

Stiles has already had enough shots to legitimately start acting like a lunatic, but he tries to keep his act together just in case Mister Whittemore drops by. He doesn’t want to repeat that one incident with one baked and half-naked Stiles propositioning a rolling camera and then dancing to some embarrassingly teenage song while one stone-cold sober Mister Whittemore was watching. Thank God Danny managed to snatch the tape before it leaked on Youtube.

“Why back?” he frowns at Allison, doing his best to act wounded. “She was never mine to begin with, in case you’ve forgotten, dear friend who pays attention to everything I say and even asks questions from time to time.”

Allison just shrugs, “I’m still a better listener than Scott.”

This is true because Scott, his BFF aka Allison’s long-term disgustingly lovestruck boyfriend, has no listening skills whatsoever, which is probably why he landed a vet career in the end. The animals he treats have no complicated workplace crushes on their boss’s girlfriends, they don’t exchange a significant handshake and a half-smile with their cameramen and spend the whole night freaking out about it – of course he loves the little sick fuckers.

“Why isn’t he here anyway?” Stiles asks in order to get his mind off the destructive track of the why-my-best-friend-doesn’t-listen-to-me routine. “Busy sticking  prolonged objects into dog’s buttholes? It’s 1 a.m., who has a sick dog at 1 a.m.? Seriously, do you think he is having an affair with Erica the assistant with attitude?”

“She’s coming too,” Allison beams because she really likes Erica for some unknown reason. “With her _boyfriend_.”

“But she hates my show, why would she come celebrate my success?”

“Because free booze. Now tell me, how are things with Lydia?”

Allison has a secret crush on the idea of getting them together, if there is such a thing as having a crush on an idea. Stiles invented it because Allison acted just as mad as any other person who has a crush. It got messier with time – as in, people started noticing and people started talking. The most outrageous rumor Stiles has heard was that the four of them, Scott included, were a happy family who shared literally everything and lived in a monstrous foursome collaboration. Jackson’s face, when he heard it, was worth it though.

“There’s nothing to tell, toots,” he says, knowing how she hates it when he calls her that. Well, he hates when she brings up Lydia, so tit for tat. “She is as far from me as getting an award for hosting the most decent and religion approved TV show, but you know that – you are my ultimate stalker. Christ, you even know my Facebook password.”

“And email, and Twitter, and Tumblr–”

“Yeah-yeah, I get the picture, toots, I’m stupid to have only one password. But it’s long and it’s got numbers!”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Allison coos, patting him on the hand. “Anyway, I hear Lydia has not been happy with Jackson lately.”

Stiles’ heart skips a beat. An old habit, but from time to time it crawls back and bites him on the ass when he least expects it.

“So?”

“So,” Allison says and moves closer, “I had a chat with her earlier today, and she seems to be more open about the idea of you and her–”

“Who is that?” Stiles interrupts with a gulp because as much as he wants to hear the rest, the guy who has just walked in is too much of an eye candy to think about anything else.

The guy scans the room full of TV people at various stages of drunk and then gives Danny a small wave and hurries to him, which gives Stiles a nasty feeling building up in his stomach. It may as well be the shots acting up, but he has felt this so often over the years that he is able to recognize it now. _The hot person nausea_ , that’s how it is called in his book. The hot person nausea accompanies every scene in his life when someone attractive screens the shit out of him, the hotshot with a cool show, and goes for someone else, which, with Stiles’ luck, happens quite a lot.

“Wait, I know that guy,” Allison gives the unknown hottie a hostile look. “What is he doing here?”

“Seems like he’s with Danny,” Stiles observes, but when the two exchange nothing but a bro-like fist bump and stand silently together, he changes his mind. “No, doesn’t look that way. I mean, he certainly is with Danny, he knows him, duh, but he is not _with_ him, as in screwing his brains out in the bathroom stall while Jackson sings some cheesy song on karaoke and Scott feels you up under the table when he thinks  no one is looking–”

“I got it, Stiles. Jeez, don’t you know when to shut up?”

“I shut up only when I get paid for it, like when it’s time to fade into the background and let my guests fight or make out,” he says, eyes fixed on the guy. The guy has a sexy five o’clock shadow and pretty sweet guns, judging from the tight sleeves of his shirt. And his eyebrows are bushy and give him an angry look, which for some reason makes Stiles want to giggle. “How do you know him anyway?”

Allison looks pissed and is about to answer, but then the gang shows up – Scott, his sexy assistant Erica and her boyfriend Boyd, all three of them already trashed drunk and happy as hell.

“What up! Cool show, bro, nice tits, great wedding, nasty trannies, I loved it,” Scott spills all at once and then indulges in some intense make-out session with Allison, leaving Stiles alone and obliged to say something to the two people he doesn’t really know. And he is pretty sure Erica hates not only his show, but him as well because you can’t make fun of one’s life work coming up with new ways to insult it every time if it’s not something personal.

“Er. . . I thought you were supposed to save puppies and stuff, not get swinishly drunk on the job,” is all Stiles can manage after being amazingly witty on TV the whole evening. “I mean, thanks for caring enough to celebrate my success and all, but seriously.”

Boyd, however, whom Stiles officially doesn’t know, remains intact. “They did save someone tonight. It was a bad case of an iguana swallowing too many dimes. They still watched your show though. I’m Boyd, by the way, a fan of your work.”  
“He’s just being nice,” Erica enters with a crooked smile. “But the wedding ceremony was quite funny, I must admit. All the bouquet fights, a traditional knuckle sandwich for the groom, and a bucket of chicken wings as a wedding present for the 600 pound bride – nice touch. Is Danny legally authorized to perform weddings, by the way?”

“Obviously, not a regular viewer, Erica,” Stiles says condescendingly. “Reverend Mahealani is a registered wedding officiant. I mean, he’s not a real reverend, but same difference, right?”

Boyd gives him a small smile, which is very sweet in comparison with Erica’s sour face. She is very serious about weddings, Scott told him once, because she has made it her personal quest to throw the best wedding ever to make all her girlfriends jealous. Things matter to her.

“Anyway,” Erica finally breaks the awkward silence, “where is all the booze? Boyd, bring us something, I want to drink with this hillbilly hotshot, just in case he becomes famous.”

“I _am_ famous!” Stiles cries defensively.

And he really is. People from Beacon Hills, a small town he is from, don’t miss his show for the world, and when he comes to visit, they bring all sorts of his favorite food, smile at him and act pretty much starstruck, even the jocks who used to beat the crap out of him in school. It’s nice. And when his crew goes somewhere deep inside the country to film, people recognize him on the streets, crowd around him, give him free stuff in shops, ask him to sign his DVDs. One guy even showed him a tattoo with Stiles’ face on his right butt cheek. So yes, Stiles is kind of famous, but maybe not in the eyes of Erica the snobbish big city dweller. But who cares? People like her are not his target audience anyway.

Boyd is just about to go to the bar, where Jackson the producer is getting dangerously drunk all alone, when Stiles stops him. “I’ll take care of you guys. After all, you are guests and my mom has taught me well. Chill, I’ll be right back.”

And then he leaps forward, trying to be not so much in a hurry as just joyously fast, because there’s Danny the cameraman, who is about to return from the bar with two beers in his hands. Stiles jogs up to him.

“Sup, Danny. Great show tonight, huh?”

Danny the cameraman doesn’t look happy or upset, he just looks very calm, which is his default expression.

“You were very witty, and you didn’t touch your hair even once. Lydia must be over the moon. Speaking of Lydia, I haven’t seen her tonight. Jackson is getting kind of out of control, she should really come.”

Stiles casts a quick look at his boss, who looks on the verge of climbing up on the roof and making everyone think that he will jump. Jackson will never jump, he’s too much of an attention slut to actually pull something like that off, but the emotional side of almost-jumping could sure cheer him up.

“Oh, well,” Stiles sighs, not sorry for him even the slightest bit. “Anyway, who’s your date?”

Danny gives him a strange look, examines the beers in his hands, then looks at the other end of the room, where the unknown hottie is standing glued to the wall, and finally gets it. “That is Derek, we rent an apartment together. Why? Interested?”

The hot person nausea gives Stiles an unpleasant hello in his stomach, but he manages to keep it down.

“Well, if he’s, you know, into it–”

“I would advise against it,” Danny deadpans.

And then comes the word vomit, which is a necessary part of Stiles’ life, just as touching his lips and hair when Lydia doesn’t see.

“Why, is there something wrong with me? Did he say anything? Is he terrible in bed? Does he think my jokes are not funny? Wait, does he think I’m trying to be funny because I’m terrible in bed? _Tell me_!”

Danny’s face changes ever so slightly, but Stiles can immediately spot the difference. Danny the cameraman is not happy with any of this, but it gives him more pain to watch Stiles choking on ridiculous guesses than to let him get rejected in person.

“Here,” Danny says, handing him the beers. “I’ll take care of your friends and you go talk to him. Don’t come on too strong though, it gets him nervous.”

The nausea crawls up his esophagus and is about to break free, but Stiles heroically stifles it.

“Wait-wait-wait, Danny!” he whispers, jumping on his feet with excitement and a little bit from the sudden urge to pee, which always happens when he is this drunk and stressed. “At least tell me what the guy is like! You know I can’t handle the wild card, give me something, you live with him, for fuck’s sake!”

That gets Danny thinking. He carefully gauges Derek, who looks extremely bored and too sober for this party, and says something really strange even for him.

“Derek is. . . deep.”

And then the fucker pushes him on the back, and Stiles finds himself making his way straight up to Derek the deep guy, and that is when his mind goes completely blank. The beers are cold in his hands, he hears people around talking and laughing, the music is playing its beats on his brain, and Derek suddenly stops scrutinizing his shoe laces and looks up, straight at Stiles.

Which is just the right time for Stiles to find out that the fucking hot person nausea and the word vomit, his two arch-enemies, have formed an alliance aimed at destroying his chances of having a personal life.

“Haven’t seen your pretty ass around,” Stiles says and then actually feels his eyes going round and scared from the realization of what a dumb thing he has just uttered. But this is only the beginning of the ultimate shame, and, God help him, he goes on, “You must be hurting, falling down all the way from heaven. Here, have some beer. Don’t worry, no date rape in it, just same old lube, if you know what I mean. Social lube, as in alcohol.”

 _Where in the name of blue fuck did this come from_? Stiles is terrified, mainly because he can’t shut up and he feels that there is more coming out of him – more cheesy pick-up lines he must have read somewhere on the internet, and now they mutated in his head and are fighting their way out.

Derek the deep guy just stares at him intently. No way of knowing whether he wants to hit Stiles in the face, dismember him slowly or give him a pitying smile.

“Name’s Stiles, but you can call me Mr. Right.”

_The fuuuuck is going on?!!!_

“And you’re Derek, according to Danny the cameraman, and you are deep and you get nervous when people come on to you too strong. Which is exactly what I am doing right now. I’m sorry. You’re too hot to think straight, pun intended.”

 This is officially the worst case of a come-on in the history of come-ons, and Stiles finally shuts the hell up and just stands there thinking about all the horrible ways to commit suicide after that. Suddenly he feels the bottle in his right hand move and the brush of other person’s fingers against his.

Derek takes a sip from the bottle, face deadpan as before, and finally says, “That was very lame.”

Stiles gives a weak chuckle because he can stand only so much pressure and it’s been a damn hard day.

“Yeah, I get all thumbs when I talk to hot people, And it wasn’t a come-on just now, I’m only stating the fact.” That earns him a curious eyebrow raise, and Stiles considers it his green light to elaborate. “Well, you might think that being on TV gets you places, but the truth is I’m a shy guy.”

“Didn’t seem so shy tonight on the show,” Derek observes, and the right thing would be showing just a hint of a smile after that, but Derek does not do that.

Stiles is confused. Is it an accusation? A mockery? A weird flirtation?

“So nice to meet a fan,” Stiles finally manages because it’s neutral and changes the subject.

“I’m not a fan,” Derek says, dead-serious, leaving Stiles empty-handed again.

He tries one more time though, “But you did find the time to watch my show, right?”

Derek shrugs, “I wanted to see Danny do that wedding, is all.”

“This is it?” Stiles asks in the final attempt to make a normal conversation. “Well, what about the actual show?”

Derek gives him a glare, takes another swig and elaborates, crushing Stiles’ hopes and dreams in one blow. “I think your show is insulting to a number of social groups and is altogether derogatory. You make fun of the LGBTQ community, and if not, you use them for plot twists, the women in your show seem foolish, dependent, clinging to their men, however abusive or adulterous they are, you make it seem all right to pursue incestuous desires, you advertize and approve of meaningless sex and having more than one partner. Everything that you portray in your show is filth.”

The first reaction Stiles has is to just stand there gaping and slack-jawed. He has been told things in his life, nasty things about his show, but everything that Derek said seems to be aimed not at the show, but at him directly – as if the guy considers _him_ nothing but filth. The hostile glare doesn’t help to dissolve the impression.

“E-Excuse me?” Stiles stutters, his voice for some reason an octave higher than usual. “The show is not about insulting, and it doesn’t advertize anything that you said.”

“Really?” The brow movement again. “What is its bottom line then?”

“The bottom line of my show,” Stiles says, stressing _my show_ because it seems to have gotten very personal and he feels that it is his honor that is at stake here. “The bottom line is that I help people solve their problems.”

Derek does not look persuaded. He actually looks irritated, but Stiles doesn’t care.

“Problems can be solved at home, behind closed doors, Stiles,” Derek says, and it seems to Stiles that for the first time in his life his name was used as an insult. “They don’t need to be shown to the whole country in the form of a bizarre act where people cheer to fights and fake kisses. If Danny hadn’t told me that all of the people were not actors, I would have thought otherwise, but it seems that there actually exist some poor fellows whose self-esteem is so low that they are ready to wash their dirty laundry in front of cameras just for the sake of that one minute of disgusting fame. Your show makes me sick, Stiles.”

“There it is again!” Stiles can’t help but scream out, pointing his beer bottle’s neck at Derek’s chest. “You actually think you can insult me by calling me by my own name! Do I make you sick too?”

From the look Derek gives him it’s pretty clear – yes, Stiles makes him sick. This is so far from being fair that for a brief moment Stiles contemplates the consequences of him smashing this beer bottle over the guy’s head, but he is better than that. There are hundreds of great comeback lines he can use, but all of them care to visit him only after, in the middle of the sleepless rest of the night; right now all he can give is a stupid laugh (gosh, when is he going to stop being dumb in front of people?) and a weak, “Your call, man. Your call.”

He then goes back to Erica and Boyd, who have evidently hit it off with Danny the cameraman.

“Did he give you a hard time?” Danny asks. He doesn’t sound apologetic because he did warn Stiles, didn’t he?

Stiles only glares at him and then grabs someone’s glass and downs it in a heartbeat. The alcohol does not make things better, but it makes Erica erupt with laughter.

“Seems like our little hotshot got turned down! Did he not like the way you were looking at that tranny on the show? Oh, wait, I know, he probably disapproved of the way you started eating the wings from the bride’s bucket. Oh my God, this is precious!”

Stiles does not want to get into another verbal battle today – it seems he has lost his flair. He stays at the party a little longer but does not talk to anyone, which is surprisingly easy. He ends up in the smoking-room sucking on a joint with Allison, Scott and Lydia. He still doesn’t speak, but no one notices because they are all wasted as fuck.

The weed makes the world seem a little better, but still not quite good enough, and so he leaves at 4 a.m. His apartment greets him with the fragile sound of emptiness, which breaks immediately after he dumps his messenger bag on the floor. It is dark and soothing around: the smells, the light, the objects and the colors.

Stiles takes a long shower. While the hot water pours on his wet head and runs down his body in pleasant streams, he thinks about nothing in particular. There is a heavy emptiness inside his chest, there is something dark and chaotic in his head. No thoughts enter his mind, no images, no sounds. He is empty.

When he is already in bed, he feels there is one more thing he needs to do. So he wakes up his phone and taps a quick text, sends it and only then crawls under the blanket.

 

“What is it?” Derek asks when he sees Danny smile upon reading a text which has just come.

“Stiles says you’re a douche,” Danny announces and motions to the door. “Did Isaac lock it?”

“No, I did. Wait a sec, I’ve got the key.”

They step into a small hall which smells like dudes live here. Danny hits blindly on the wall where the switch is supposed to be and gets the light on – he has been living in this apartment much longer than Derek has, he knows stuff.

“I hope you didn’t think _he_ was a douche,” Danny says while battling with his shoes. “He is actually a sweet guy. I mean, not for you, obviously, he can do much better, but–”

“Hold it,” Derek chokes, turning to him. “I think I misheard you. Are you saying that Stiles Stilinski, the host of the trashiest, the most offensive show on national TV, is a sweet guy who is out of my league?”

Danny only shrugs.

“You confuse the show and the person, Derek, and you tend to label people as soon as they are within your eyeshot. Stiles deserves better.”

This is _not_ happening. Derek is so lost that he can’t even come up with anything to say – so ridiculous it is. _He’s_ the bad guy? Meanwhile Danny yawns into his folded hand and slithers into the bathroom, leaving Derek alone with the feeling of being an idiot.

He camps outside the bathroom for a couple of minutes, but Danny likes his shower, so Derek thinks better of it and sneaks into his room. Isaac is not sleeping – he can see it by the way the blanket is moving along with his chest. The breathing is too frequent.

“Hey,” Derek says and sits on Isaac’s bed – his bed actually, but since Isaac has been staying with him, Derek had to move to a very old and ugly couch.

“Hey,” Isaac answers and opens his eyes. They are not sleepy at all, which means the poor bastard could not sleep again.

“I told you that you could borrow my iPod and listen to music when you have trouble falling sleep, remember? Also the games, remember the games? I taught you how to play them. In your phone, do you remember?”

Isaac can sometimes be a handful, everyone has warned him about it, but Derek only now sees all the pitfalls, and it has barely been a month of him being the boy’s legal guardian. Isaac is totally not adapted to living in the real world – Derek’s memory of Isaac’s horrified reaction to a cell phone is still too vivid in his head, and it’s nothing compared to other things. Poor kid. Derek can’t help but be grateful he himself managed to get out of there faster than they could consume him the same way as they did Isaac and God knows how many more young minds.

“Listen,” he says, his fingers stroking the boy’s curls, “God will not get angry at you if you use technology, okay? It’s not guns, nobody will get hurt if you listen to a couple of good songs before you fall asleep. That sound good?”

Isaac gives him a bashful nod of agreement, but Derek sees the true answer in his eyes – _no, all technology is from Satan, don’t tempt me, traitor, heretic, freak_.

He ends up telling Isaac one of his stories to lull him to sleep. He has a lot of stories – being a writer does that to you. Derek, however, thinks that he is somewhat different from all the other storytellers out there: unlike them, he keeps all of his ideas in a huge storehouse, a place where every story has a label with its name, genre, status of development, names of the main characters and so on. It is his little secret which he will never give away to anyone – the secret of his stories being so perfectly organized, so immaculately logical. Danny always says that his habit of labeling everything and everyone is a sign of an unadventurous mind, but Derek disagrees. Labeling brings peace to his mind, it is the only way he can make sense of the life he is living now. Isaac, for example, is labeled a poor mistreated kid traumatized by a bunch of religious lunatics, whereas Stiles Stilinski wears a label of a disrespectful and crude asshole, and it is going to stay this way.

Derek has trouble sleeping as well but does not put on earphones and lets the iPod lie on the table untouched. He doesn’t quite understand why.


	2. Chapter 2

“The Boner Guy has shown today. Again,” says Allison with a disgusted expression on her pretty face. “Jackson is dealing with him right now, and I pray to God the guy is not flashing his dick again, because Jackson is in Mode 1 today.”

Stiles hands her the cigarette they are sharing. “Someone should go tell the big boss not to cut it off, we’ll need it for the show. The guy’s hung like a horse, it will make our ratings go crazy.”

“No, not really,” she shakes her head. “But I like the picture.”

“Ooo, careful, toots, I will be more than willing to spill it to Scott.”

She gives him a friendly nudge on the shoulder, “You wouldn’t. You’re still mad at him for throwing up in your dressing room.”

Even though Stiles was not the one who had to clean up all the mess after the party, including the vomit on the floor and the walls which looked almost like a picture of some hotshot modern artist whose talent was too good to be understood by humans, he still considers it his duty to give Scott the silent treatment for what he did to his dressing room. The cleaning lady, however, did a great job, and now his room smells of vanilla and strawberry.

“Anyway,” Allison gives him a cheerful smile, “I’m going to see Lydia about tomorrow’s shoot, wanna join?”

He shakes his head, but then suddenly remembers about the thing he wanted to ask Allison the whole weekend and stands up, making her grin like a crazy person.

“Oh shut up, you pervert,” he clicks his tongue at her all-knowing brow wiggle, “it’s not about Lydia.”

She still looks like a winner when they leave the smoking room and stroll along the busy corridor looking for Lydia.

“So, listen,” Stiles drops nonchalantly after a few minutes, “you never told me how you knew that guy Derek, from the party. Is he an ex?”

Allison actually shivers, as though the idea is horrific to her. “No, God no! He used to date my Aunt Kate long ago, when I was a teen.”

“The Aunt Kate you never shut up about and would probably marry if not for Scott?” he specifies even though there is no need for it, he just gets a kick out of getting on Allison’s nerves.

But truth be told, she really speaks about her aunt a lot. Usually Allison is very neutral about her family: she has a warm relationship with her dad, she likes her mom and has a lot of respect for her grandpa, but Aunt Kate is definitely the apple of her eye. They all see her very rarely, and when Kate Argent does come to town, she usually drags Allison with her and doesn’t bring her back until the two find some adventure together. A couple of times such thrill-seeking quests ended in jail, but Allison has not learned her lesson and still looks forward to her aunt’s every visit like some dog with abandonment issues. No wonder she hates her ex.

“Did he do anything to her?” Stiles asks just to be clear because he loves Allison, but her judgment can get a little clouded when it comes to Aunt Kate.

“I don’t know, she wouldn’t tell me. It must have been horrible.”

“No shit. So, any details?”

“I told you I have no idea, Stiles, but it’s been years now and Aunt Kate still won’t talk about the guy. Maybe he slept with her best friend or something.”

Stiles saw Kate Argent only once, and the woman did not look like someone who has friends, let alone best friends. She was just. . . There was something off about her, Stiles remembers observing that day, and Scott agreed with him but then panicked and made Stiles swear on his mother’s grave that he won’t tell Allison.

“Stiles Stilinski!” a voice calls, and Stiles turns to face a woman in the corridor looking at him like he was a piece of the most perfect cake in the world. She is short, overweight on the verge of obesity and wears trashy make-up and a dress way too short for her unsightly legs. “Stiles, oh honey, I love your show so much! You are such a cutie, I just love looking at your pretty face!”

Allison sends him a questioning look, but he shakes his head. It’s all right, he can handle this on his own.

“Gee, miss, thank you ever so much!” Stiles says with a smile, mimicking her southern accent just a little bit. She will not notice it, but her subconscious mind will immediately give her green light to trust him and give away whatever secrets she is hiding from the world. It works every time. “It is such a treat to meet a fan! Say, what’s your name?”

“Sandra, honey.”

“Are you here because you have a story to share with the world, Sandra?”

He takes her by the elbow, which is unpleasantly soft and sweaty, and leads her to Jackson’s office, slow enough for her to make a decision to tell him everything there is to tell because sometimes Jackson scares potential guests away with his arrogance when he’s in Mode 1 and his indifferent attitude when he’s in Mode 2. People, however, remember the pleasant talk they had with Stiles Stilinski and put up with Jackson’s shit for the sake of seeing the sweet host one more time.

“Listen, Sandra,” Stiles says, face dead-serious, when they are right outside Jackson’s office. “I really think that your story needs to be heard by all Americans, but I’m not the one who calls the shots around here, you get my drift?”

Sandra gives him a sympathetic hug, leaving some of her sweat on him, but Stiles doesn’t flinch.

“We will now walk through this door and you will have to repeat all the things you told me, but to my boss, and he will then decide. Don’t be afraid, just be honest because honesty is what this show is all about. Can you promise me that?”

“Honey, I promise,” Sandra says, and now she is officially on the Stilinski hook.

They walk in and save Jackson from the Boner Guy swaying his junk right at his face, then Stiles leaves them and walks out with the feeling of a job well done. It only seems easy, but keeping this show going is actually a lot more work than anyone can imagine. Every week they have to work on at least five stories all at the same time because there is a fifty percent chance that some of the participants will bail, and then there is no story to tell. There are times when Jackson’s office is swarming with people, but sometimes it’s completely empty and all the crew has to get creative, go out there and look for a good story. Once Stiles even went out on the bad streets of Chicago as bait and actually brought two people back to the office. He also almost got raped and cut. And some girl had stolen his tie pin.

Stiles wanders into the cafeteria, where he sees Danny all alone with a monstrously huge mug of coffee before him and a camera in his lap. Danny gives him a smile and motions him to join.

“Perfect timing,” Stiles says, dropping on the spare seat. “I was just looking for you.”

“Okay, but I need to take off in–” Danny consults his wristwatch, “–about five minutes. What is it?”

Stiles hesitates for a couple of seconds before saying it. He has spent the whole weekend pondering over the reasons Danny’s flatmate could have to despise Stiles so much, the thought just wouldn’t let him go, and finally he gave in and made a mental note to ask Danny about it on Monday. But the time has come, and he suddenly realizes he doesn’t know how to ask. So he just goes with whatever is flying in his head right now and blurts out, “Why is Derek such a douche?”

Danny takes a sip from his mug, looking unruffled. “He is not actually a. . . well, not entirely a douche,” he says in his calm pleasant voice in which even the word _douche_ sounds like something nice and sweet.

“Well, why is he this way? Because I don’t understand why he would say such hurtful things about me–”

“Wait,” Danny’s eyes darken a bit. “Did he insult you?”

Stiles starts to say _yes_ , but then shakes his head. “Well, he was expressing his unflattering opinion of my show, but it seemed like he was actually attacking me personally. I don’t know, Danny, I might have misunderstood him, I don’t cross that out–”

“No, you got him right. Derek doesn’t like you.”

Stiles stares at Danny for a long moment, speechless. Up to this point he has had a small part of him hoping that he read too much into the situation and a total stranger simply cannot have such contempt for him, but Danny never lies – so it must be true. It hurts more than it should, and the rational side of Stiles knows he should just leave it be and forget about the whole thing, but he ends up speaking anyway.

“What is his problem with me? Did I make a revealing story about a member of his family or what?”

“No, Derek is just like that. He labels everything and everyone around. Don’t take it personally.”

“I can’t, see? That’s the problem,” Stiles retorts sharply, oblivious that he is now speaking very loudly. “I have been turning that episode in my head the whole weekend and I still can’t make sense of it. I’ve met people in my life who would say I’m a fag and that my show is gay and stupid, but they say things like that to everyone outside of their comfort zone! Derek is obviously smarter than such losers, so why does he feel free labeling me without even caring to get to know me?”

Danny sighs heavily and leans in closer because people start prying.

“Listen,” he says, “before you get any ideas, you should know a little bit about Derek, but I don’t want it to go anywhere outside this table. Clear?”

“You got it,” Stiles agrees eagerly.

Danny obviously hesitates – he is not the kind of guy who likes spilling other people’s personal business – but Stiles knows Danny always stands for what’s right, and in his book what Derek did is clearly not okay.

“Derek comes from a freakishly religious family,” Danny finally whispers, but only when he has made sure nobody is eavesdropping. “Up to sixteen he had been a huge zealot who thought modern technology was from Satan, gay people were all paving their way to Hell and a bunch of other bull. They all lived in a small community behind a huge steel fence somewhere in California, no TV or internet was allowed – they were practically isolated from the outside world. Then he met a girl, an older woman actually–”

 “Kate Argent?” Stiles interrupts, feeling on the verge of tripping because religious fanatics scare him even more than violent racists and redneck homophobes.

Danny frowns. “It was definitely a Kate, but I didn’t know she was a relative to Allison. Anyway, this Kate ripped him out of that hellhole, taught him things about modern life, he really got attached to her, even thought about marrying her. And then one day some crazy bat took a shit inside her head and she decided to poison all his family, him included, and make it look like a mass suicide.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Stiles wants to say something, to make an appropriate face of surprise, horror and pity all at the same time, but he can only do it when the cameras are watching. This intensely practiced expression is only half true when he makes it on the show, and if he brings it out now, it would seem fake to both him and Danny. So Stiles does not do anything, and he thinks Danny understands.

“She had some components wrong and everyone survived, but there would have been severe consequences if Derek hadn’t called the ambulance. He was in possession of the only phone in the whole village where his family lives (ironically, it had been Kate’s present), they could have really died. The family, however, blamed him, and so he had no other choice but to leave without any sort of closure. It has been ten years now, but Derek still hasn’t moved on completely.”

“What do you mean?” Stiles asks in a harsh whisper and suddenly feels that his throat has gone dry and sore.

“Sometimes he says weird and hurtful things or just stares at you in a judgmental way. He almost never notices it about himself, I always have to break it to him, but then he gets very defensive . That is why I told you it wasn’t a good idea to hit on him at the party: Derek is a nice guy, but he comes with a baggage, and it’s not pretty.”

 Stiles has nothing to say to that, so he just sits there and thinks really hard about all of this. When he is done thinking, Danny is not here anymore – Stiles vaguely remembers hearing him leave – and he is all alone. Suddenly the feeling of emptiness rushes back, and he has no power to fight it.

 

Laura does not look happy, but then again, Laura is never happy. She gives him a cold hug when he opens the door for her, then strolls in, her red helmet under her arm, her hair a beautiful mess. She looks like a whore in these revealing clothes that show every curve of her body for every man and woman in town to gawk at. Derek shudders and gives himself a mental slap – _she’s your sister, for Christ’s sake, get a hold of yourself_.

“So you live here now, huh?” Laura says, her voice hoarse and inexplicably pleasant. She looks around and, before Derek can stop her, walks down the hall and right into Danny’s room. The room full of pin-up posters of half-naked men looking suggestively into the camera. The sight seems to excite Laura because when she turns, something like a genuine smile blossoms on her lips, something sisterly: teasing, but sweet. “I see you have finally made peace with who you are.”

“It’s. . . not my room,” Derek mutters, dropping his gaze and suddenly feeling like blushing. “It’s my flatmate’s. He’s gay.”

“You mean, openly gay,” she corrects, and the excitement in her eyes fades. “Well, show me the little dude then. Is he here?” She points to the closed door of his room and then just presses the handle and walks inside.

_Sure, by all means, who needs manners?_

Isaac is sitting on his bed, his hands carefully placed on his lap, his back perfectly straight, his huge eyes downcast, not daring to look the stranger in the eye. Laura stands right in front of him staring intently until Isaac looks up, and Derek holds his breath for a couple of seconds during which the two just look at each other.

Then Laura says, “Well, he is just as cute as you said he was. Look at these angelic curls, and these pink lips! My oh my, I wish you were eighteen.”

“She’s joking,” Derek explains hastily and steps inside the room.

Today is Monday, so Danny’s at work and there is nobody else in the apartment, but Isaac feels safer with the door closed, so Derek shuts it quietly after himself and offers Laura a seat. He doesn’t like being around her all that much, but she helped him at a time when nobody else would, and he never lets himself forget that.

“You are Revered Lahey’s little boy,” Laura observes. She is just trying to be nice, Derek thinks, but it does the exact opposite: a trace of relaxation flees from Isaac’s face, he pushes away, farther on the bed so that he could feel the wall with his back and crosses his arms defensively. Laura notices everything, she is not stupid. “You know,” she says, voice suddenly quiet and achingly personal, “I have been living in Chicago for almost fifteen years now. I ran away right after I turned sixteen and I was told that I had to get married. But I didn’t want to, I had other goals to pursue, so they made me an outcast who would not obey the word of God. Reverend – it was another Reverend, you don’t remember him – said that I had a demon living inside me, he said I had turned my back on God and the demon found refuge in my deprived soul.”

She tells it with the nonchalant ease of a person who has long put all of it behind them, and Derek envies it. Isaac seems nervous, but he still leans in, eager to listen. So Laura keeps speaking.

“They forced me to work all day long, wash the dishes for the whole community, dust the rooms, clean the trash, take care of infants. I was not allowed to sleep more than four hours a day, and some nights they would shake me awake and make me pray, then the reverend would cast the demon from my body by screaming really loud and shaking my head. I didn’t feel anything but pain and anger growing inside me. My family was forbidden to so much as look at me, but Derek was eleven back then, he didn’t understand what a gentile was, so once he ran up to me and handed me his bottle of fresh water. It was a scorching day, I remember, and I. . .” Her eyes suddenly turn dim as if it were not Isaac’s horrified face she saw before her but the backyard of the house where it all had happened. “I did not take the water, but they still punished him. Seven days in the basement cell, nothing but stale bread and a glass of water a day. That is when I knew I had to run.”

Everyone is mortally quiet for a long minute during which Derek can see it all rushing back to him: the backyard with a lone too-skinny figure weeding the garden, the tired face, the black scarf of the gentile over her thin neck, and he remembers the strong and painful feeling swelling up inside his chest. He doesn’t yet know how to call it, but it is loneliness he feels. He also remembers the basement, and the terrifying rustling of rats scurrying inside the walls and on the floor around him. He remembers praying at the top of his lungs just so the others would hear and think he has repented his sin, but no one comes, and the hours in the darkness seem endless.

Just then Isaac shuffles nervously on the bed and opens his mouth. “Well, did you. . . Did you take Derek with you?”

Laura smiles bitterly. “No, Isaac, I didn’t. I was sixteen, I didn’t know anything, I had no skills and pretty much felt like I didn’t belong in life. Apart from that, I had to struggle with the notion of going to Hell for doing what I had done, so I had enough on my plate at that time. Besides, I was not ready to take care of a small kid – I was selfish and wanted to live a little for myself. Derek is better than me, he is less selfish and much braver. For the most part, that is.”

She gives Derek an affectionate and slightly reprimanding look, and it makes something inside him twist and turn and shudder uncomfortably. He swallows the feeling down and focuses on Isaac for the rest of the talk.

When it is over, Derek leads his sister out of the room, but only after Isaac begs another visit out of her, and follows her to the front door.

“The poor thing,” she whispers, looking back. “Listen, if you need help taking care of him, he is welcome to stay at my place anytime, I’m living alone now.”

“Hm-m?” Derek utters, raising his eyebrows at her. “What happened to the girlfriend?”

She shrugs, “Didn’t work out. I’m too fucked up for her. Anyway, how’s your love life, little bro?”

“I have Isaac to take care of,” Derek reminds a bit too spitefully. “No time for that.”

“Oh, but I refuse to believe that a New York Times bestselling author experiences lack of hot people coming on to them.”

“That is actually why I chose this career – almost nobody knows what I look like, so when they do come on, they have no idea who I am.”

“Well,” Laura gives him a wry smile and pats him on the shoulder, “sleep with one of them, you look like you really need to get laid. You can ask that flatmate of yours to do you the favor.” She laughs at the face he makes. She has a nice laugh – one of the few nice things about Laura. “But seriously, find someone. You can show the poor curly puppy over there how people form real human connection, it will be educational. But don’t fuck when he is in the room.”

“You’re gross,” Derek curls his lips downwards, disgusted at the notion. “Now go, I’ve had enough of you for the day.”

She gives him a wink and presses the elevator button.

“I liked her,” is the first thing Isaac says when Derek is back in their room. “I want to see her again.”

This is progress. When Derek first saw Laura outside the community, he thought that she was definitely going to Hell, with all her bright make-up and suggestive clothes. This is a huge leap forward for them both, Derek thinks, because whatever he might fool himself into feeling, the truth is he likes Laura too and he also wants to see her again. This is a strange thought for him, and also troublesome because now he will have to spend a good half an hour reevaluating everything he knows about his sister and eventually assign a new label for her.

He says it to Danny during dinner because they have been each other’s confidants since the time Derek moved in. Their collaboration is flawless: they both don’t like to talk much, but they need someone they can trust their utmost secret thoughts with, and they live together, so, like it or not, secrets kind of pour out on their own.

“It’s good news that you’re beginning to doubt your evaluation system,” Danny praises. “Maybe you want to practice some more? I was going to invite Stiles over this weekend.”

Derek suddenly goes very still, his fork never making it to his mouth.

“What?” he demands.

“Stiles Stilinski, the guy whose guts you allegedly hate. Don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking about the whole party episode, I live with you, remember? And don’t even try to persuade me that you don’t have the hots for him, because seriously, Derek.”

The look on Danny’s face is kind and caring, but Derek sees in it nothing but mockery. He jumps up from the table and storms out from the kitchen and into his room, only to earn a surprised gulp from Isaac. The boy looks genuinely scared as if he were expecting a smack in the face, so Derek forces himself to tune his anger down.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” he says, sitting on the edge of his bed. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“’S okay,” Isaac mutters under his breath.

But it is really not, because normal sixteen-year-olds are not supposed to jump up in panic every time they hear a loud noise. Derek doesn’t know what to do, so he just sits there and lets his story-filled head do all the work. Isaac listens attentively till the very end, consumes the plot and the characters, their faces and their feelings until he forgets about whatever brought him so on edge before. Finally he is calm again, and Derek realizes that he is calm too.

When he returns to the kitchen to apologize to Danny, he suddenly blurts out something entirely different from the original plan.

“Okay, I admit he’s hot.”

Danny raises the glass he was drinking from with a smile, “Great, let’s celebrate the small step forward. Have some wine, it's good.”

“No,” Derek says, but sits anyway and takes the glass. “I want to be clear here: yes, I find him attractive, but I don’t like him as a person.”

“You don’t _know_ him as a person,” Danny retorts with an almost bored expression – so obvious it is to him. “This is why I wanted to invite him. If you guys don’t hit it off – fine, even better, but you could really use another person’s opinion on your labeling problem, not to mention Stiles practically wants to volunteer. He has been asking about you too.”  
Derek doesn’t’ know this, but his expression resembles one that a deer caught by the headlights of the forthcoming car might have. He is very careful not to show his agitation when he asks, a precarious glare in his eyes, “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing he shouldn’t know, Derek, chill out. Besides, I think you should do all the talking, not me. If you are not comfortable with him over at our place, I say the four of us, Isaac included, go out and see a movie or something.”

“No.”

“Just no?”

“Just no.”  
There are many reasons, and Isaac being not ready to go outside and have fun like normal people is only one of them, but Derek does not feel like elaborating and Danny does not ask. He does ask, however, if the whole Stiles coming over thing is okay.

“Let me tell you later.”

“Are you afraid Stiles will talk Isaac into a coma?”

“No,” Derek can’t help but snort at the picture. “Just. . . Please don’t hurry with this.”

Danny, being the best confidant ever, understands and doesn’t ask questions.

 

“Do you have a death wish, Stilinski?” is the first reaction he gets from Lydia. “Don’t you know how she gets when it comes to Aunt Kate?”

She is covering the face of a guest from another show with a heavy layer of powder and should have probably stopped two minutes ago, but Lydia’s mind is elsewhere and the guest is oblivious.

“This is a bad, bad idea,” she says, waiving her powder brush in front of his face and getting some of the stuff on his expensive suit. “Gosh, I can’t believe I actually need to explain to you on how many levels it is bad!”

“No, Lydia, I understand everything, you don’t have to–”

“First off, it’s intrusion into this guy Derek’s personal business. What if he doesn’t want the issue to be uncovered? You’ll just make an enemy out of him if you keep pressing, and besides, he said so himself that he hated your show. He would never agree to participate.”

Stiles lets out a long exasperated sigh – he knows it all, he has been pondering over the idea for the whole week now and it seems like a disaster waiting to happen, but the thought simply won’t let him go. Last Friday he told Derek that his show was about helping people solve their problems, and he knows damn well when there is a problem aching to be solved. Besides, the story is huge, especially if the poisoning part is true. It could not only get his ratings fly through the roof, but it can actually help someone who is still trapped in the cult and doesn’t know how to get out.

“Secondly,” Lydia continues, hunching over the guest’s face, “if everything you said were true, the police would have been involved and Kate Argent would have been long behind bars. But guess what, Allison is all psyched about her next visit, which is in two weeks, and this means two things: one – Kate is still at large; two – Allison will stab you in your sleep if you so much as lay a finger on her beloved aunt.”

“But I just want to get to the truth!” Stiles cries out, tired of being yelled at.

“You just want to get in that guy’s pants, honey,” Lydia retorts after the guest leaves the dressing room. “But it’s not going to make him like you. If you’re filth in his eyes – fine, be it. You know how many people around the whole country hate your show and you along with it? Thousands. Why stick to this one guy?”

“I don’t know. He just makes me feel– “ _empty inside_ , “–like what I do is not important, like it’s some sick perversion and I am a sick pervert if I enjoy doing it.”

Lydia scoffs, but says nothing. She actually is a big supporter of the show, Stiles knows it because of the nights they have a tradition of spending drinking wine in his dressing room after the show and talking over that episode’s guests and their problems. Sometimes they get so deep they both cry a little, sometimes they fight so hard they don’t speak for several days after, but the truth behind all this is that they both truly care. Stiles sees in her eyes how Derek’s story has touched her, but she won’t admit she wants to help, and he knows she is right about him not getting involved, but he can’t just brush it off.

There is a sudden knock on the door, and then Danny’s face pops in.

“I knew I’d find you here,” he says, looking at Stiles. “Allison asked if you could come a bit early tomorrow, your mic’s died, she will bring you a different one for the show tomorrow, but she wants you to practice speaking in it beforehand.”

“Will do,” Stiles nods, but Danny is not in a hurry to leave. Looks like there is more.

“Um, do you want to come over to my place on Sunday?”

Before Stiles can even begin processing what he has just heard, Lydia is way ahead of him with a sarcastic, “Our cutie pie here does not do booty calls, Reverend Mahealani, don’t you know that?”

Danny gives her a blank look and continues, “Derek is making apricot pie, he’s kind of an expert.”

“Derek,” Lydia interrupts again, all the silliness gone from her voice, and now she is drilling Danny with her best evil stare. “As in, your-show-is-filth-and-you-are-too Derek? Are you kidding me, Danny? You are willingly going to let that arrogant asshole even near our precious Stiles?”

“Suddenly everyone loves me,” Stiles observes, genuinely surprised because his friends don’t often tell him nice things, especially Lydia. She must really hate the idea of him and Derek speaking again.

“Look, man,” Danny says with his hands raised, “the offer stands till Saturday, you can give me an answer later, when there is no bad-tempered lady clouding your judgment.”

“You meant malicious bitch?” Lydia corrects and then makes a forward motion with a comb clutched in her hand, but Danny is already gone. She then turns to Stiles and pleads, “Don’t do it. You’ll only get into a huge mess with this guy.”

Stiles ends up promising not to make any rash decisions and leaves, but he doesn’t last even a minute as soon as he’s out of the building – he gets his phone out and sends a quick “ _I’m there_ ” to Danny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for caring enough to show me your appreciation, it really matters.  
> I'll try to update weekly from now on.


	3. Chapter 3

“Hey, dad.”

There is a rustle on the other end of the line, and then a familiar voice says, “Hi. You didn’t call yesterday, everything all right?”

Stiles shakes his head as though his father could see him – an old habit he can’t and doesn’t want to get rid of. “It’s fine, just. . . Went on a small trip out of town to be the guest star on another show and fell asleep right after I got home. So I’m calling now.”

There’s a long yawn, which makes Stiles see the picture flash into life in his head: his dad lying in bed and stretching after a long sleep, the only one real sleep he gets in a week; there are takeout boxes piled up on the nightstand to the right, a half-finished bottle of soda and a dirty mug with a thick layer of coffee sediment at the bottom – his dad is sloppy and lazy when Stiles is not around, when no one is around. His office desk is always in perfect order though, which Stiles has always found surprising and a little bit phony.

“It’s eleven already, get up,” he says. “And throw away all the trash in your room, gosh! And wash that mug, it’s disgusting.”

“Actually, there are two,” his dad chuckles. Then Stiles hears the bed creaking, accompanied by a quiet moan – his back isn’t getting any better these days. “Okay, I’m taking them to the sink right now, hear?”

There is a clinging sound, and with his mind’s eye Stiles sees his dad bumping the mugs together so that they could prove their existence in his dad’s hands. It makes him break into a smile – his dad is so silly sometimes.

“What are you doing up if you say you were busy on Saturday? You sound like you’re out somewhere.”

“Oh, I’ve been invited to a friend’s place, so I’m at the store trying to choose a wine to bring them.”

“Them?”

“Yeah, he rents an apartment with this other person.” Stiles realizes he is being obscure, but that’s just what he does whenever a guy he kind of likes is concerned. “We met at a party last Friday, right after my big live show, and this other person. . . Well, we didn’t get along. At all. And now my friend wants us to make up, or at least that’s what I think it is because I can never tell Danny’s intentions.”

There is a long silence on the line, and Stiles is very much aware what his dad’s expression is right now. He first saw it when he was fifteen and had gone on a movie date with the guy he was obsessed about. It would be unfair to say that his dad didn’t support him – no, he actually did, he even gave him money to get that guy a nice present for his birthday, but he never seemed happy or proud of his son’s relationship. Eventually Stiles broke up with that guy, and although there were a lot of reasons, he is smart enough to admit that a big part of his decision was due to his dad’s silent disapproval.

Since then a lot has changed: Stiles started living in Chicago and pursued his career on TV while struggling with college, he hardly had time to buy groceries, not to mention visit his home town. He now has all these cool new friends, all of them – dynamic and creative people, he is relatively famous, there is a whole show named after him, but his dad keeps living in a small town where nothing ever happens, he is alone and lonely, his life is a constant struggle with boredom and feeling useless. Sheriff Stilinski, once Stiles’ hero and role model, is growing old in his mind.

That is why Stiles always remembers to call and to fill his dad in on every event in his life, however minor. He is not bragging but asking for advice, which is the only thing his dad can give him now, the only way Stiles can make him feel important these days. And yes, Stiles tells him about his love life as well, even if it makes both of them awkward and unpleasantly silent, just like now.

 “So,” his dad says finally, “what’s his name?”

“Er, Derek?”

“Derek, huh. Okay, and who is this Derek guy?”

Stiles knows his dad is doing his best, but he can hear disappointment and an alienated chill in his voice. It hurts, it always hurts when he does that, but this time the pain is so strong Stiles has to halt right in the middle of an aisle in the grocery store and press his free hand to his solar plexus, where it burns and aches without end.

 _Bad timing for self-pity, Stiles. Get your act together_ , he says to himself because people are watching and a shop assistant is looking at him as if she were waiting for the signal to call 911.

Stiles cajoles his body into relaxing, puts on his usual cheerful mask he always has in store for the camera and keeps walking, looking high-spirited and confident again. He even manages to flash the assistant a stunning smile when he passes her.

“Oh, I don’t know his last name, but I do know that he’s from a religious background.”

His voice has picked up the imposed mood and is now a happy chirrup everyone who watches his show is used to hearing.

“A nice Christian boy?” his dad inquires, managing quite well to hide his distaste.

“Not exactly, he looks like a rock star keeping a low profile. I mean, I don’t know much about him, but this is why I’m coming over to his and Danny’s place – to find out, although I’m not keeping my hopes up: the guy doesn’t like my show and doesn’t seem to like me much as well.”

“Well, why are you going then?”

“I told you, to find out!”

“To find out why he doesn’t like you? This doesn’t seem like a plan to me, Stiles.”

“Well. . . There might be another reason.”

“Spare me the details, son,” his dad says drily.

“It’s not _that_! I just. . . I kind of. . . Oh, never mind.”

He is not even sure anymore he wants to pursue his idea of casting light upon Derek’s story to the world. The story itself seems very interesting and not only in terms of his program – his reporter side calls for investigation, for unearthing the truth; but then again, if Derek is a nice guy just like Danny says, Stiles would definitely blow his chances with him by being nosy, and Stiles really wants those chances despite all the things Derek said to him. He doesn’t quite understand why he is so hung up on someone he barely knows, but things don’t often make sense in his head. Having thought about the whole matter excessively over the last couple of days, Stiles decided he would only make the final decision after meeting Derek again.

He can’t, however, overload his dad with all of this, so he changes the subject by asking, “What sort of wine would go with apricot pie?”

“I prefer to wash down my dessert with cognac,” his dad says half-seriously.

“Too strong, I’ll get wasted and embarrass myself. Again.”

“What happened the first time?”

“You don’t want to hear what I said, you’ll disown me.”

He ends up buying a bottle of nice dessert wine after terrorizing the shop assistant for twenty straight minutes, and then calls his dad again. The sheriff seems much more awake now, and there is a sound of some food frying in the background.

“Are you eating scrambled eggs for breakfast again?” Stiles rumbles, hoping that he sounds threatening enough but not expecting anything solid: deep inside his dad is like a little mischievous kid and this kid will have his way come rain or shine. “Dad, is there at least anything green in your fridge right now?”

He hears his dad opening the fridge. “Well, there are some canned peas left from last week.”

Stiles lets out an exasperated sigh because really, his role model in life is a guy who doesn’t know how to feed himself properly.

“I’ll place an order for you in that online grocery store you hate so much, they deliver home. Christ, I’ll even pay for your freaking greens and apples, just please don’t die!”

Here is when his dad suddenly chuckles, and the affection in his voice is so clear, so vivid that Stiles almost drops his wine. “Will do, son. Will do. Hey, you have a good time tonight, all right?”

Stiles brings the bottle close to him and smiles, “Sure, dad.”

“And tell everyone I said hi.”

“Okay.”

 

Derek is not ready for this. He thought he was, he lived the whole day with certainty, he cleaned the apartment and bought Isaac some new clothes, he got all the ingredients for the pie and made it from scratch while old videos of Stiles’ show on Youtube were playing on his laptop (he still can’t make himself like it, but Stiles’ jokes and his pretty face make it tolerable), he even ironed his sleeveless white shirt, the one he loves most, and put it on right before seven. He has felt really good right, but then suddenly the doorbell rings and Danny shoves him forward with an encouraging smile.

 _It should be easy_ , Derek pep-talks himself while walking to the door. _No biggie, just a simple hangout of three guys and Isaac_. _Easy as pie_.

He stifles a chuckle at this last thought and turns the key. Stiles looks really young in a loose t-shirt with some monstrosity printed on it and cut-off jeans. His hair is a mess, unlike the perfect hairstyle he sports on his show, but then again, he has never worn casual clothes on TV. Not that Derek would know that for a fact – he just assumes.

“Uh, hi,” Stiles utters, clearly uncomfortable, and gives Derek an awkward wave but almost drops a bottle of wine he is carrying and stops with the strange movements.  Instead he speaks, which is also kind of a disaster. “I’m sober, by the way, and I promise I won’t come on to you again. Although I can’t promise I won’t say dumb things, because that’s kind of how I roll.” He then pauses for a brief second and looks like he is consulting a voice in his head, which Derek is eager to believe. Then he goes again, “I hope we won’t get into a fight tonight, really. I’m just here to have a good time, normal time with normal people. Can I come in now or should I just go now before I spiral out of control?”

Derek steps away from the entrance, feeling a bit glad he is not the only one who is all thumbs, and waves him in; the guest gladly accepts the invitation.

“God, it sure smells like some kick-ass pie in here! I hope your pie tastes as good as it smells, Derek– “ Stiles cuts himself off, looks at Derek with round deer-in-the-headlights eyes, and then shoots out, “That totally wasn’t a come-on, I swear on my sacred bond with Danny the cameraman.”

“On your what?” Danny pipes up mockingly. He has been helping Derek clean the kitchen from all the flour and still has some on his face. “Hey, man, good to see you.”

“I brought wine.” Stiles hands him the bottle, and Derek suddenly realizes by looking at him that the guy not just worried – he is practically terrified. Why is he so on edge? “And by the way, you’ve got white stuff all around your face. Have you been sticking your nose in Derek’s pie? _Oh fuck_.” And then he actually slaps his hand over his mouth, hard enough for it to hurt. “Why do I keep doing this? Please don’t mind me, I’m nervous, I haven’t been out with people, just hanging out, for a very long time (Scott and Allison don’t count, they’re not people in my book, they’re a disgusting old married couple of rabbits). Just tell me where the darkest corner of your apartment is and I’m gonna go die in there.”

Danny cracks up and puts his arm around their awkward  guest’s shoulders. “It’s fine, Stiles, I’m used to it, but Derek sometimes has trouble adjusting to people blabbing weird things in his face, so keep it down a notch, have pity on the poor bastard.”  
Stiles turns his head to face Derek, but his eyes never meet his – they just wander around Derek’s face as if to intentionally avoid contact. “Sorry,” he says, and it looks like he really means it.

“That’ll do it,” Danny announces and leads him into the kitchen.

They sit at the table and talk shop while Derek cuts the pie and opens the bottle. He knows regular guys would rather have beer and chips on a Sunday evening, but he has never really been a regular guy. At the time all his peers were out smoking dope, playing in bands and living the life of rebels, he did not know what the internet was or how to use the computer, so one can’t really blame him for liking different things. He tried to blend in and be just like all the others when he got out, but most of it seemed so fake that after a while he just took what was right for him and threw out all the rest.

“Are we expecting anyone else?” asks Stiles, who has only now noticed that there are four plates and four glasses on the table.

Danny says nothing and looks expectantly at Derek. It makes sense, really, because Isaac is a part of his life, not Danny’s, and he is the one who should explain such a delicate thing. Someone more adequate and less nervous than Derek would probably explain to the newcomer in detail how Isaac should be treated and what topics should be avoided, but Derek is in no state for rational things, so he just puts the knife down and scurries out of the kitchen like a regular idiot.

Isaac is sitting on his bed waiting. He looks really nice in the new clothes, almost like a normal teenage boy except for his ever-wounded eyes and a small silver crucifix around his neck. Looking at him like this, so scared and at the same time eager, brings back a lot of memories. Laura used to do the same thing for him: she would bring home one person at a time, make everyone comfortable and let the stranger talk to Derek, explain simple things like going grocery shopping or inviting someone on a movie date. The most vivid memories Derek has about those times are the precious several minutes before every meeting – a deadly combination of excitement and cold feet; it was intoxicating, but in a good way, like reading fiction – behind every page something new lies, something he is yet to inhale and make a part of him forever. If you take away the trauma, Isaac is just as adventurous and curious, this is how Derek knows how much his ward is actually looking forward to the meeting.

“Isaac,” he says gently, “come meet our friend Stiles. It’s okay if you feel a bit weird around him because he talks a lot. I feel weird around him too.”

Isaac is not in a hurry to get up. First he casts a careful look in the direction of the kitchen and then asks, “Well, is he a nice person? Do you like him?”

Derek hesitates. He promised himself not to lie to Isaac, this is important to both of them, which is why now he is at a loss for words. Of course he can say that Stiles Stilinski is an asshole who pries on people’s personal business and has made a career out of showing the ugly insides of relationships in the most demeaning way possible – but. . . He doesn’t know what comes after _but_. There is another Stiles sitting in his kitchen right now, and this Stiles is funny and awkward to the point of being cute, every other phrase he says is worth a line in some stand-up comedian’s performance, but he is not trying to be funny – he just is. This Stiles makes Derek feel so awkward that he almost cut himself with a knife, and it never happens to him.

“I don’t know,” he finally declares because this is the most honest he can manage right now. “I have mixed feelings about the guy. Do you still want to meet him?”

Isaac springs to his feet immediately. He is very skinny, pale and a bit taller than his legal guardian, which makes the boy look like someone who is seriously sick. And Isaac _is_ sick, Derek thinks. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bring a stranger here after all. It’s too late now, however, and Derek leads his ward back into the kitchen, hoping that nothing goes wrong.

The first thing Isaac does when he sees Stiles is beam. “You’re the guy from Derek’s computer!”

“What?” Stiles’ mouth turns into a perfect “O”.

Before Isaac can elaborate and ruin something with his naivety, Derek admits reluctantly, “I was watching your show on Youtube while cooking. To get a better perspective.”

 _In case we get into a fight about your work again_ , he finishes in his mind, but Stiles doesn’t need to hear that.

He thought Isaac would get scared of the guest, considering all the awful things he was told about media and technology, but apparently some things that have to do with Derek give Isaac a sense of stability, protection, goodness. This does not happen often – Isaac still ignores the iPod and almost never touches his own cellphone – but sometimes Derek catches Isaac gazing into the screen of his laptop when he is working or surfing the internet. Isaac must have liked something about Stiles when he caught glimpses of his videos because he actually does not seem frightened at all, which has never happened before with strangers.

“You don’t look like a demon lives inside you,” Isaac observes innocently, making Stiles bulge his eyes with shock. “Derek is right, people from TV are not all bad. You have a nice laugh, too.”

That is when a dumbshow takes place: Stiles’ eyes suddenly light up with understanding and he looks firstly at Isaac – pity, then at Derek – remorse, and finally at Danny – confusion. Danny looks back, and the silent conversation they have next is the last straw: Derek, on the verge of suffocating with anger, grabs Danny by the elbow, yanks him up and drags him into his room.

“What the hell, man? Why did you tell him?” he yells at the top of his lungs, banging his clenched fist right into the door dangerously close to Danny’s head, but the traitor doesn’t as much as flinch.

“He needed to know what he was getting into,” he says and puts his hand on Derek’s tense shoulder. Derek’s first reaction is to shrug it off, but he manages to withhold the urge. “He didn’t understand why you were so rough with him at the party,” Danny goes on. “You really hurt his feelings, although he will never admit it. Derek, I have told you numerous times and I will not get tired of repeating it: your past hovers above you like a bloodsucking bitch and clouds your judgment about everything around. I understand that you’ve been through terrible things, but Stiles does not deserve to be looked at through the prism of your past. I can’t let you do this to people, especially those I care about.”

His eyes are bare honesty, love and compassion, and Derek can’t look in them anymore – it burns. Disappointment and remorse, the intertwining sisters that are always somewhere behind the corner, put their hands on his neck and start choking him, mildly at first, but as the seconds go by, it gets nauseating. He lowers his gaze and mutters, “Sorry. But you still should have told me.”

“I was hoping you guys would get to this topic without me around,” Danny confesses with a smile. “Well, let’s go back, Isaac must have freaked out when he heard you yell.”

“Oh God, you’re right.”

But it turns out there was no need to hurry: Stiles and Isaac are sitting at the table together and talking. Well, Stiles does all the talking and Isaac just sits there mesmerized and looks at him as though he were a great wizard.

“So when I turned fifteen, my dad gave me a camera as a birthday present, that’s where it all started. I nagged people at the school who I knew had some worries on their mind and steamrolled them into giving me interviews, then I tried to find solutions to their crazy teenage problems. In most cases it ended badly, but I did manage to form several couples and get some people back together, that’s why they started calling me Mrs. Matchmaker. No idea why, I don’t think I used to look like an old lady who sticks her nose into everyone’s business, but who knows? All my high school albums are at my dad’s house in Beacon Hills, so nobody will ever know the truth.”

He finishes the last sentence with a dramatic tremble in his voice, and when Isaac actually giggles at that, Danny and Derek, who have been standing behind their backs listening, share a relieved smile. Danny walks to the table first and urges, “And then what happened? Here’s your wine, by the way. Isaac, your juice.”

At first Stiles seems a bit lost, especially when Derek sits right next to him, their elbows brushing, but Isaac looks really enchanted by the story, so he goes on.

“Then I asked a friend of mine to teach me how to edit videos, and together we made the first episode of my show. It was called the Stiles Show – lame, I know, but a lot of people on Youtube actually liked it, they said the name was catchy and funny for some reason. The overall feedback to the show was very controversial, but I didn’t let it get me down – I kept searching for more stories and filming them. When I turned seventeen, I knew exactly what I wanted to become, so I started sending my videos, which by that time had become quite good, to local TV channels.”

“What happened next?” asks Isaac, mouth full of pie and crumbs all over his new shirt.

Looking at him, Derek suddenly realizes that for the first time in a long while he actually feels calm with Isaac around. Somehow he knows that Isaac won’t throw a fit or get upset because of something he doesn’t feel is right – Stiles’ voice does that to him, to all of them.

“Well,” their skillful storyteller chuckles and closes his eyes for a moment, “almost all of the channels turned me down immediately, but someone showed my videos to a young producer at Syndication, and he gave me a shot. So began my days of juggling work and school in the huge city of Chicago. I rented a small hellhole of a room in a nasty neighborhood, slaved away at work and gave pretty much all the money I earned to pay for my education – it was Hell on earth, I tell you.”

Isaac cringes at the mention of Hell, but Stiles notices and goes on talking to soften the blow.

“One time, when I was still in college, we closed down for two months because of a huge scandal that happened on the air: one of the guests had managed to bring a knife on the show and cut a security guy. It wasn’t bad, but everyone was scared to come to us after the incident and we had no stories. Then Jackson (he is my producer) took the matter into his own hands and together with two other people involved in the production redesigned the whole show.”

“What did they change?” asks Isaac, and Stiles actually looks embarrassed for a moment when he tells him the following.

“Well, first off, they installed a pole in the studio and made me slide down it at the beginning of each show.”

“What’s a pole?” Isaac frowns, and Danny comes to the rescue.

“It’s this long stick used for dancing around it. The dancing is actually quite beautiful, but Stiles doesn’t do the dancing. His guests sometimes do, however.”

After the precarious situation is handled, Stiles continues.

“Then they made me wear a suit. Before that I had worn shirts and jeans, something casual, but they figured I should mature along with the show since it had my name on it and all. This is how I started wearing suits to work. Another important change was the music: it used to be some cheesy elevator track I genuinely hated, but Jackson insisted we go for a heavy sound, so we did. There were some other things we’ve changed. . .” He trails off and casts a quick look at Derek as if to check whether he has not crossed the line. “Anyway, it turned out awesome. We went back on the air and it has been great ever since. End of story.”

“You tell stories well,” Isaac says with a shy smile and then points at Derek. “Derek here can also do that, he is a writer.”

“Really?” Stiles turns to him, surprised. “I’m a huge bookworm, I must have read something by you. What’s your penname?”

“It’s not a penname, it’s a real name,” Derek says, suddenly too aware of his shoulders tensing under his shirt. “Derek Hale.”

 “Derek Hale? As in, I-am-the-Alpha Derek Hale?” Stiles does his best not to burst out laughing but fails.

“That’s not what the book is called,” Derek mumbles defensively.

“But that’s the most memorable thing about it and, quite frankly, the lamest. Seriously, why does your guy keep walking around stating that he’s the Alpha? Everyone knows that already, including the girl he has the hots for. By the way, that girl – no brain-to-mouth filter whatsoever, I loved her. Tell him, Danny.”

“Yeah,” Danny smiles, “he dressed like her for a week and threatened the whole crew with his werewolf boyfriend the Alpha. It was stupid.”

They end up discussing Derek’s work and then books and art in general, and time flies by freakishly fast. When Isaac goes back to their room, sleepy and tired from all the socializing, Danny looks at the watch and announces with fake regret that he needs to do some editing for tomorrow’s work and leaves them alone. Suddenly Stiles, who has been talking non-stop the whole evening, just sits there shuffling uncomfortably on his seat and staring at his hands, and Derek realizes it is his time to save the day.

“So,” he begins and pours his guest another glass of wine from the second bottle they took from his and Danny’s stash, “nice evening, huh?”

Stiles takes his glass, examines it as if it were an elaborate bomb, and then says, “I’m sorry if at some point further on I will hit on you again; I’m already a bit drunk and this glass might just seal the deal.”

“I’ll make you some strong coffee before you go,” Derek promises, and he thinks Stiles notices how he failed to comment when he was supposed to. But the truth is Derek does not know what to say about that, and there is no time to think it over.

 For several uncomfortable minutes they just sip their wine in silence, taking turns sneaking glances at each other. Stiles is the one who breaks it first.

“You know what, I kind of get why you said my show was filth.” He flashes a sad smile at Derek’s surprise. “Can’t ignore the big old elephant, sorry. As I was saying, I think I get it, but you have to understand something as well.”

Derek hastily downs his glass in one gulp, suddenly nervous again.

“My guests are mainly from small God-forsaken towns of this country, they think small and when they fight, it often comes to actual fighting, fists flying and all that jazz. They yell at each other like crazy, they cheat on each other mainly because their life is so freaking boring – nothing ever happens, and when they have a chance to be on national TV, they damn well grab it. I grew up in a small town and I have seen dozens of such scandals for real, with no cameras around. This is what actually happens every day in all the nooks of America, this is the real life of thousands of people. I understand it because I have lived in this world, and I’m not saying it’s right and not bizarre at all, because it _is_ bizarre and stupid, but it’s life, and I have always been a strong believer that the main purpose of TV is to depict the truth. My show _is_ the truth. Now of course you might say that there is no need for the cheering crowd or my puns, but another purpose of TV is to entertain, and this is what my show does apart from help – it entertains. Cards on the table, I would prefer my show without a lot of things, but otherwise no one would watch it and we would go down. You probably faced the same thing with your editor: when you first showed him the script, he said it was good, but this and that had to go. If you are not hot shit in the sphere yet, you have to play by the rules, and these are the rules for TV, I have to follow them.”

It seems to Derek that he has been listening for ages, and when Stiles cuts himself off to take a swig from his glass, the silence is suddenly deafening. He is not sure he knows what to fill it with – he is simply not capable of processing everything that has been said in a heartbeat and give results. He needs to ponder over it.

So instead he says something different, something that he is definitely sure of now.

“I’m sorry I offended you at that party, it wasn’t my intention at all. Sometimes. . .” He lets out a long sigh to collect his thoughts. “Sometimes I get overly judgmental; Danny keeps telling me that, but I don’t seem to change. It’s hard. I still think your show crosses the line in many aspects, but I don’t think you’re filth. I’m sorry I said that.”

“Well, technically,” Stiles pauses to clear his throat, and Derek notices red blossoming on his pale cheeks. “You didn’t say that.”

“But I implied it. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

 Stiles lets out a quiet laugh and mumbles, loosening the collar of his shirt, “Why does it make me hot that you speak in short sentences? _I’m sorry_!” he yells without so much as a moment of pause. “I told you it happens when I am around hot people, and especially when I’m drunk. Sorry, sorry.”

“We should stop apologizing to each other,” Derek smirks and gets up. “I think it’s time for that coffee.”

While they sip the bitter drink and finish the pie, Stiles asks him when and why he began writing, and Derek is eager to tell. He usually is very private about it, but it is surprisingly nice to share with someone who also has an artistic side in them. Besides, he has heard Stiles’ success story, it only seems fair.

Derek started feeling the desire to write when he was twelve. He remembers that he once found a fiction book in the house, which used to belong to some other family before the community had moved into that territory and secluded themselves from the outer world. The book was old and shattered, and Derek remembers how small the letters seemed to him then. He shuddered at the thought of his father finding out that he had been reading something different from what their school program offered, and only read it when he was alone. It was quite tricky because he shared his bedroom with his younger sister and their cousin, but they were kindergarteners at the time and could not yet read, so after a couple of weeks of them taking no interest in the book he felt safe enough to bring it out with them inside.

He cannot recall the title nor the author’s name, but the plot, he remembers, was so enchanting that he even had dreams about that world he had been introduced to. The characters in that book were brave, they relied solely on themselves to mold their own destiny, and even though they were spiritual, their faith was not blind and came from the inside rather from another’s mouth. Those people were like gods themselves.

Derek was so desperately bewitched by the story that he started making up ones of his own. It was too dangerous to write them down, so he created a small box in his head for each of the story so as not to forget. Whenever he imagined himself finding the exact box he needed and opening it, he recalled every scene and every character he had ever given birth to in that world. It gave him a heady feeling of power, and once he breathed its sweet air, he could never get enough of it.

Years went by, and people started noticing there was something different about him. Reverend Lahey insisted that he have weekly private conversations with him, and each time Derek was terrified to knock on that door and walk through it, but he then remembered his characters, a whole army of them by that time, and their unostentatious presence in the back of his head always gave him strength to endure the ordeal.

It was scary though. The Reverend had no idea what was going on in little Derek’s head, but he sure knew how to frighten. His endless talks about demons preying on the innocent and craving their bodies sometimes kept Derek awake at night, and as he lay there, listening to his own shallow breathing, he wondered if he was going to Hell for what he was doing. He got so confused once that he almost brought the book to the Reverend, but then stopped mid-way and hastily returned.

Kate was the one who urged him to start writing. She said people were given talents to sing, write and make music because that was their purpose in life – to bring something new into this world, to make changes happen. This was probably the only reason why he got drastically hooked by her. Kate was from a religious background herself (or that is what she had made him believe), but she had come to understand that about the world and she wanted him to understand it too. He was so mesmerized, so intoxicated with her. . .

He did not burn all his scripts he had written while being with her. Instead, he kept them where he could always see them, and that somehow gave him momentum to keep at it, to not let go. He wrote excessively while staying with Laura, the only person who had not turned away from him after the incident, and writing was what helped him get out of his shell.

He finished school and was getting a degree in Journalism while working for a small Chicago newspaper striving to survive in the shadow of the raptorial leaders of the field. Then one time a letter came from an unknown sender. It said that the novel he had sent to a publishing agency was given approval to be printed and his presence was requested. The novel somehow became miraculously popular – Derek could not believe it was actually happening with him, he felt overwhelmed and suffocated at the same time.

His agent pushed him out into the world, organized book signings all over the country and even got him an interview on TV once (that is how he met Danny), but Derek enjoyed his fame so little that his agent had to give up eventually. Things got better and have been going rather well ever since: his books are still popular, but almost no one who has read Derek’s books knows what he looks like, there is practically nothing personal about him on the internet and that interview never happened. Later, when Isaac came along, Derek came to appreciate his decision back then: if he had a famous face, people would never leave them both alone.

Of course Derek doesn’t tell Stiles all of this – he leaves out Kate, touches the community he used to live in ever so slightly, and with all that editing his story seems curtailed even to himself, but Stiles does not complain. If anything, he seems grateful to be let in on whatever piece of Derek’s life he is given.

“So that is why I couldn’t find any pictures of my favorite author online,” Stiles says with a playful smile, but then waves it off. “No, no, I’m just messing with you, I never look up authors I like. But Danny still should have mentioned something to me – it was him who gave me your book in the first place. Well,” he finishes his coffee and stands up, “it’s getting late, I should go.”

Derek springs to his feet before his mind catches up with his body and slams a hand upon the kitchen counter behind Stiles, obstructing his escape. His gaze is focused on their feet standing very close to one another, their bare toes almost touching.

“Wait.”

He isn’t quite sure what follows after that. Stiles’ breath is fast and shallow, as if he were afraid, and Derek sees his hands clutching and unclutching frantically, his body fidgeting. Is it because they are standing so close now? Derek doesn’t know, but he wants to find out, and so he makes an effort and lifts his gaze to meet his captive’s. Stiles looks unnaturally nervous, almost terrified: his pupils are dilated, eyes widened, mouth slightly open, lips still wet from the coffee, and Derek moves closer, feeding on the fear behind these eyes, longing to see more.

 _It is a sin_ , Revered Lahey’s voice, calm and heavy, rumbles in his head, _for a man to desire another man_. The voice makes Derek halt for a second, some part of him cringing with horror even after all these years, but it is exactly enough for Stiles to get a hold of himself.

“I-I should warn you about something,” he stutters and places both hands on Derek’s shoulders, making him draw back a little. “As much as I want to enjoy what is coming next – although I might have read too much into the situation and you totally just want to grab a knife from the counter or something–”

“Stiles.”

“I. . . kind of have a problem?” Stiles finishes with a weak apologetic smile. “I am not very good at. . . letting people. . . well. . . I’m not at all as confident as I may seem. In fact, I’m extremely self-conscious and insecure.” He sighs and drops his gaze. “There, I said it. So, Derek, if you’re doing this just because Danny asked you to or because you think you owe me something for being too harsh with me back then, please don’t.”

 _This is a sign_ , the Reverend interferes again. _It is your chance from God to keep from the sin. He has not given up on you, son_.

“Shut up,” Derek growls at both of them, sudden anger stinging him in the middle of his chest. He can’t believe that bastard still occupies his thoughts. “Just shut up.”

He feels the pressure in Stiles’ hands disappearing and sees him swallowing hard. “Okay,” Stiles whispers, and his hands are now around Derek’s bare neck, pressing closer.

Derek carefully settles his free hand on Stiles’ side, warm and pleasantly soft under the fabric of his shirt. It earns him a rapid sound of surprise escaping from Stiles’ open mouth, and Derek can’t help but move even closer, drawn to it. He stands so close now that their breaths mix and their noses almost touch; the moment is painfully long, but Derek embraces it – this long moment before the first kiss.

A stifled cry comes suddenly from his room, and Derek lets go immediately before his mind can even recognize the familiar sound. He rushes there, heart drumming in his chest, swings the door open, letting the yellow rectangle of light cast upon Isaac’s twisted body. He sees it all in one second: the face deformed by terror and wet with tears, the fists grasping the blanket, the chest heaving and falling rapidly.

Derek feels dizzy and weak in his limbs – he knows exactly what this is, and a big part of him, bigger than he is comfortable admitting, wants to simply run, but instead Derek falls to his knees before the bed and pulls Isaac in for a strong hug.

“No, no, no, _nooo_. . .”

Goose bumps attack Derek’s arms and back at the sound of Isaac’s voice. He doesn’t sound like a sixteen-year-old but like a five-year-old child, alone and scared and in terrible pain. Because this is what Isaac is deep inside.

“Isaac, calm down, it’s all right,” Derek whispers and starts rocking the writhing body in his embrace. “It’s all right, it’s okay, you’re here now, far away, you’re safe.”

His heart starts aching so much he wants to grab at his chest and make it stop, but Isaac needs him strong, so he crushes the pain for now and holds on to the boy even harder.

“It was a dream, it’s not real now. You’re here with me, I will not let anything happen to you. Do you trust me?”

Isaac pulls away, still crying and trembling like an aspen leaf. “You can’t save someone who’s garbage,” he manages to utter and wails. “You can’t help me, because God hates me, Derek, God hates me!”

It always comes to this, doesn’t it. Derek sucks in a ragged breath through his clenched teeth – here comes the hardest part.

“God loves you, Isaac.”

“Then why did He give me to _him_?!” Isaac yells, getting dangerously unhinged. “Why did He let him do all these things to me? _Why_?!”

Derek swallows and keeps silent for a moment. No matter how many times it happens, it always catches him off guard, but he promised never to lie, so he opens his mouth and tells the only truth he believes.

“I can’t explain it, Isaac, and I’m sorry for that. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, I know that and you know that, but it doesn’t mean God is cruel and He threw you away. I can’t prove it to you, but I know it in my heart. You are good, Isaac, and God is good as well. Maybe all the ordeals in our lives are given to us so that we can become stronger. You are strong. You are strong.”

Derek really believes that because he doesn’t even come close to imagining living with such a heavy burden, growing up with it, forming your personality and creating bonds with other, unsoiled people.

Eventually Isaac calms down and falls asleep, Derek’s hand in his. When it is finally safe to leave, Derek whisper-steps out and closes the door behind him. Only then does he remember that he is not alone, and the terror kicks in.

When he comes back into the kitchen, who knows how much time later, Stiles is sitting in one of the chairs with his arms holding his body, like a trauma victim might do. His haunted eyes add another touch to the resemblance. He does not look at Derek when he speaks.

“He was molested as a kid, wasn’t he? By someone from your fucking sect.”

 _It’s not my sect_ , Derek thinks, but then recalls Reverend Lahey’s voice in his head just a while ago and holds his tongue. He grabs a chair and pulls it close so that he can sit in front of Stiles, and he doesn’t want to reveal any more of his and Isaac’s secrets, but he feels that he owes Stiles something for unintentionally making him part of this mess.

“His father was a reverend, the leader of our community,” he drawls gloomily, seeking for every word like a blind man seeks for something to touch in an unfamiliar place. “He started doing it to his son when he was five.”

“Five?” Stiles chokes on the word and looks up, terrified. “Fuck, is the guy in prison?”

“On the run.” The words come out as a harsh whisper. “After I had helped Isaac file a lawsuit, he abandoned the community and vanished. It’s been two weeks now, the police are searching for him, but so far nothing.”

“Oh my God,” is the only thing Stiles can say to this. “Oh my fucking God, is this real? Why haven’t I heard of this?”

“The guy was an influential public figure in that county, the higher-ups kind of keep a low profile about the manhunt. Besides, no member of the community would testify against their reverend, they all are in love with him. You don’t understand.”

“But–” Stiles begins and then trails off.

He looks very tired now, deflated, defeated and lost, and Derek can’t help but feel guilty. He shouldn’t have brought a stranger so deep into his life, it’s too fucked up for anyone to tolerate.

“You should go,” Derek says and gives Stiles’ shoulder a light squeeze. “It’s all right now, he will probably sleep through the night. Don’t cram your head with the problems that don’t concern you, all right?”

“But they do _now_ ,” Stiles says, and his eyes are too honest for Derek to handle.

He stands up and drags Stiles with him. “I’ll call you a taxi.”

“It’s fine, I’ll catch something on the road.”

Stiles hesitates before turning the handle of the front door, opens his mouth to say something, but then just turns away and leaves.


	4. Chapter 4

“You look like shit.”

Stiles slowly turns to her in his swivel chair just as all villains do in movies. The bags under his eyes only help enliven the image, but Lydia is not scared of his Stare of Doom – she can kick ass much harder than him and they both know that.

“Trouble sleeping again? Told you to stop drinking coffee like it’s water, you work on TV, your face is your money. Seriously, are you brain-dead?” She sighs, showing her disappointment, and then walks up to his dressing table. “What would you do without me, you little fucker. . .”

He does not want to speak today, but neither does she, judging from her pout. It is ten o’clock in the morning, most of the people have already lived through a quarter of their working day, but not the TV crowd – their schedule is over the comprehension of a normal human being, so Stiles and Lydia consider 10 a.m. early morning and therefore feel in their right to grouch and scowl.

Today is Friday, five days since that evening with the pie and a lot of other things, and Stiles doesn’t know how much longer he can take. He knows he needs to sleep, but his body won’t let him – every time he crawls into his bed at the end of the day, worn out and almost dead with fatigue, an anxiety awakens inside him. Its sole purpose is to torment, and Stiles is forced to take it all: the memories of those blood-curdling screams behind the half-open door, Derek’s pleading whisper, and the sharp pain in the chest as Stiles realizes what is actually going on in there and why.

Derek doesn’t contact him, and Danny has been on a trip with another crew, leaving Stiles clueless and slowly going mad. He has been busy himself, however, and that helps a little, but when the night comes (or, as it sometimes is with his crazy schedule, dawn comes), the anxiety still finds him.

“Seriously, what’s going on?” Lydia suddenly speaks, still seemingly focused on covering the bags under his eyes. “Is that Derek guy giving you trouble?”

Stiles lingers with the answer: it’s not only about Derek anymore and at the same time it is, but he doesn’t know how to put it in words. So he mutters, “Kind of,” and then shuts up in hope she might let it go.

But this is Lydia and she needs her questions answered properly.

“What do you see in him anyway? I remember you telling me he was a huge douche.”

“Turns out he’s not. He is really, really not,” Stiles says, and a sudden wave of uncontrollable longing washes him away for a couple of excruciating moments.

 _Oh shit_ , he thinks, horrified at the sudden realization. _This can’t be happening_.

Lydia can’t sense his inner trembling, but she somehow manages to perfectly duplicate his line of thoughts.

“You sound like you’re desperately in love with the guy.”

“What? No!”

But his too-high voice has betrayed him, and Lydia stops, oblivious to the liquid foundation drying up on the brush in her hand, and glares at him as if he had just declared war to all the humanity, especially babies and nice people. Then she takes her favorite comb from the dressing table, clothed in macabre silence, and without so much as a word smacks him hard on the head.

“Snap out of it, you pathetic loser!” she yells so loud as if there were lives depending on her. “You’ve only seen him twice, then he disappears – and you turn into a whiny little bitch. Are you a whiny little bitch, Stilinski?”

“First of all, ouch,” Stiles accuses, rubbing the spot where it hurts after the mean attack. “Second of all, I don’t act this way, so fuck you.”

“Really? You haven’t been brooding and pining these past couple of days like a little bitch whose master is gone, is that what you’re saying?”

“Fuck you twice, woman, you don’t know anything!”

“Well how about you fucking tell me?!”

And then it escalates so quickly that none of them actually notice when the almost-friendly dispute turns into a heated row. They scream at each other, exchanging phrases that don’t look like they make much sense, and at some point Stiles realizes he’s standing very close to Lydia now – too close actually. He is still yelling something when she suddenly grabs his hand and presses it to the softness of her left breast clothed in the thin fabric of her pink tank top. Stiles gulps, the panic mode on and the hot person nausea following close behind. It takes him three seconds to get a hold of himself, because _Lydia’s boob_.

“What the fuck are you doing? Let go of me!”

She does eventually, but not before she practically rapes his hand, whatever the hell it means. She lets him step away and fall back into his chair holding his violated hand at a distance as if it were poisoned and then says, “At least now you’ve got your mind off that jerk. Will you stop whining now? Because it’s really getting on my nerves, Stilinski.”

 _This is stupid_ , is his first thought, but the second one annihilates it completely – _this is brilliant_! Without so much as a second of planning, Lydia has managed to find the only temporary solution that can actually give results. Show Stiles a little bit of what he once so longed, that is clever. . . and also kind of disturbing, them being friends and all. But Stiles has no time to dwell on all the awkwardness – Allison opens the door and beams at them.

“Hey, guys. Why are you so weird?” She gives them a knowing smirk, which seems to please Lydia a lot, and says, “Stiles, that douchebag from the party is somewhere outside, looking for you. Is there something I don’t know? Because if he’s stalking you, I swear to God I’m going to–”

But Stiles is not listening – he is already rushing to the exit and pushing her gently aside, mind elsewhere. The anxiety, his midnight friend, is wavering over him again, but he is not letting it have its way this time and fights the almost supernatural fear of the forthcoming meeting. It is important, very important that he not show how the five-day silence has affected him, so he orders himself to calm the fuck down, over and over again while opening doors at random in hope of finding Derek. Why didn’t he think of exchanging phone numbers? At least Danny should have.

“Oh, Stiles!” Jackson, who has just walked out of his office, motions him to come closer. “I need to discuss a small change in the next program. See, Kristine here says her secret lover won’t be able to make it to the show. . .”

Stiles misses half the words and simply agrees with everything until he spots a familiar figure at the end of the corridor. Derek sees him too and hurries closer, clearly relieved. He stands behind Jackson’s back to let him finish, but Stiles knows better than to wait because Jackson loves to be listened to and never gets tired of it, so he wraps it up by using a couple of verbal techniques and body language that he always uses on the show when a guest is having a word vomit.

“All right, seems like this is all,” Jackson finally says and asks Kristine the troublesome guest to follow him into his office but doesn’t care enough to look back and see if she is following.

Kristine is actually a six-foot tall and quite sturdy drag queen wearing a short dress revealing her muscular, but also very pretty legs on heels so high they should be illegal. She strolls right up to Stiles and gives him a passionate hug and maybe gropes his ass a little, saying how much she loves him and his show. She also propositions him, not being very subtle at all, four times in the two minutes of their conversation. Stiles flirts back a bit, but at the same time keeps his distance – a skill he has had to learn on TV.

After Kristine the drag queen is out of the picture, Stiles finally feels free to talk. The anxiety is almost gone by that time, replaced by slight embarrassment, which grows even stronger when Derek’s heavy gaze meets his. Derek looks troubled and angry, but it has little to nothing to do with Stiles, or so Stiles hopes.

“Hey,” he says a tad weakly, scratching the back of his head nervously and ruining his hairsdo again. He is supposed to be shooting a commercial in about an hour, but it’s all right – he will have enough time to get himself in order if Lydia does her job quickly, and she can perform miracles when stressed. (She will still have to do his whole face because she had only concealed the bags under his eyes when the fighting started.)

Derek clears his throat, confusion written all over his face, and lowers his gaze, suddenly very interested in Stiles’ shirt.

“Does this. . . Does this happen a lot?”

“What, the propositioning or the groping?”

“The. . . everything. Are all the guests so overly fond of you?”

Stiles shrugs, feeling light-headed and talkative with agitation. “I have my fair share of crazy fans. Case in point, I get offered a free lap dance every other week, but it’s not a big deal – if your face shows on TV often enough, you become a trophy fuck by default.”

 If Derek was confused before that, now he really gets into the full mode. “I see,” he half-whispers. “But. . .”

Stiles knows what is trembling on the tip of Derek’s tongue, eager to get out: he wants to ask why Stiles said those things about him being insecure if clearly somewhere in his job description it is mentioned that hell of a lot of people will hit on you every single day. How can one stay self-conscious in such conditions? Stiles doesn’t like speaking about it. Among his friends only Scott knows the reason, but, strangely enough, Stiles doesn’t feel reluctant to the idea of telling Derek – after all, Stiles already knows too much about his baggage, it would be only fair to even the score.

The corridor of a TV building is not really an appropriate place to have a private conversation – they already attract enough attention as it is – so Stiles motions Derek to come along and leads him into his dressing room, praying that Lydia has left. She has, which is a relief.

“Have a seat,” Stiles nods to his chair, the only chair here because the room is too small to have guests and Lydia sits on the table when she feels like it.

“It’s okay.” Derek leans against the wall and sinks his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. That is when Stiles notices how deeply tired Derek looks, probably as tired as Stiles feels inside. It must have been a hard week for him too. “Are you busy now?” Derek asks a bit hesitantly. “I would have called, but I have been preoccupied the last couple of days, and when it did occur to me to ask Danny for your number, he ignored my calls.”

“I know, he’s been slaving away somewhere south, but he’s supposed to be back tonight. You know, if you wanted to get in touch with me, you could have just called the program.” Stiles gives him a playful smile, although he doesn’t feel like it, and so the smile falters quickly. After a long silence, he starts again, this time all-serious. “So, what’s up? And no, I’m not busy for another–” he consults his watch “–forty minutes or so.”

“I was in the area,” Derek points to the window with his chin. “Wanted to see you. Sorry I’ve disappeared on you.”

“That’s okay, you don’t owe me anything,” Stiles blurts out, very much aware of how quickly anxiety consumes him again. He feels he is going to say something stupid next, and God help him, he does. “After all, we are just two guys who almost shared a kiss in your kitchen and had a scary oversharing incident afterwards, so no pressure here. I’m not a whiny little bitch, okay?”

“What?” Derek stares at him, eyes wide open.

 _Fucking Lydia_.

“No, nothing.” Stiles swings his arm before him trying to drive away the air of infinite stupidity which clearly follows him around. “Word vomit, you’ll learn that about me. If you still want to learn, that is.”

Derek lets that half-question drop and gives the room a brief look-over. “It’s soothing in here. And it smells like vanilla and strawberry.”

“Yeah, that’s because of my stupid friend Scott.” Stiles ignores the raised eyebrow on Derek’s face – no need to complicate the situation even further with the throwing-up story. “And the soothing part is because Lydia the make-up artist is not around, she’s the Devil.”

Derek does not seem to flinch at the word, but Stiles immediately feels the need to apologize. He doesn’t, however, and lets Derek make the next move now – after all, it isn’t him who has come to seek the other’s company.

“I’ve been busy these past couple of days with Isaac’s business,” Derek admits, eyes on his feet, his expression deeply sad and bitter. “My editor has been on my ass about the story I was supposed to submit a week ago, and Danny hasn’t been around this week to help me out with Isaac, so I kind of. . . Sorry.”

“I told you it was fine, we’re practically nobody to each other–”

This is when Derek raises his head and pierces Stiles with a very strange, almost inimical stare, making him shrivel inside his suit, and suddenly Stiles realizes, with the painful feeling of icy claws squeezing his lungs, that this is not a joke – none of it.

 _It’s crazy_ , his brain says panicky, _people don’t just bond after two meetings, one of which was an utter disaster, things like that don’t happen in real life_.

Not in his life, to be more precise. All the people Stiles has been immediately attracted to on levels much deeper than physical appearance did not share his feelings, ever. But Derek doesn’t seem to be one of them, does he? He is altogether different, and Stiles can’t decide whether the realization makes him terrified or happy.

His throat suddenly goes excruciatingly dry, and he has to swallow hard in order to speak. “I would lie if I said you weren’t weirding me out right now, but I also kind of like it. Is it oversharing? Because I could go miles. I could say, for instance, how I have suffered from raging insomnia these past couple of nights thinking of that poor kid you’re taking care of and how I called you a douche when you totally don’t deserve it because you’re actually such a sweet guy, only a little fucked up in the head, and how you disappeared because of something I may have done wrong. Was it because you watched that episode on Youtube where I was dancing with that tango instructor and he groped me right on the air? Or was it the woman that made me touch her gigantic boobs? Oh my God, it was so awful I had nightmares about that.”

“Stiles.” Derek’s eyes, though still having a bit of defensive glare in them, now start glimmering. “You’re strange,” he says with a small smile.

Stiles wants to answer that it’s all right, a respectable amount of time has to pass till Derek gets immune to his non-stop blabbing, but then Derek suddenly cuts the distance between them, sharp and fast, and pulls him close by the belt loops on his pants – and their bodies are touching now, sending a pleasant shiver down Stiles’ spine. Derek pushes him roughly up against a wall and slides one knee between Stiles’ legs, his gaze never leaving the other’s eyes.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” Derek says in a hoarse voice, hot breath on Stiles’ lips. “Can we do it later?”

At first Stiles doesn’t recognize this as a question – he is too concerned with the deft fingers unbuttoning his jacket and that fucking thigh pressing in all the right places. He lifts his eyelids, which now feel like they weigh a ton, and breathes out in a stifled moan, “Just kiss me, you cocktease.”

He hasn’t been kissed in about a year, and the feeling makes him dizzy and hungry for more at the same time. His legs suddenly lose all their strength, and Derek has to press even closer and hold him by the sides to not let him drop.

 _Melting_ , this is how it feels to Stiles. He is melting in Derek’s arms, melting from the inside out, and he welcomes the feeling – somehow it does not seem wrong, dislikable, dangerous like with most of the other intimate moments he has shared with someone. This kiss couldn’t be dirtier even if it were from a porno, but Stiles doesn’t care, because for the first time in his life it actually feels right, and nothing can take that away from him.

He lets his fingers snake into Derek’s hair and pulls at it a little bit, only to make a low growl escape from Derek’s mouth – a combination of pleasure and a warning. Stiles keeps exploring then, both with his hands and his mouth, eyes shut, body trembling and almost out of control.

 _This is getting wild_ , he catches himself thinking and bites on Derek’s lower lip to prove his theory. What he gets in return is a shaky hiss, and then Derek grabs him by the shoulders, lifts him and presses him roughly into the wall, greedy and violent, like an animal showing who’s boss to its toy. This thought is actually a trifle disturbing, but it makes throbbing in Stiles’ loins almost insufferable, and when Derek leans forward again, rubbing their hips together, he can’t help a loud moan escape from his mouth.

He barely registers the sound of an opening door, but the feeling of someone’s presence is suddenly too strong to ignore. Lydia is standing in the doorway, somehow managing to pull off an angry pout, indignation and amusement all at the same time.

“The _fucking hair_ , Stilinski,” she finally hisses, silent enough for Stiles to understand that he is fucked for eternity and not in a pleasant way.

She then closes the door and, Stiles thinks, leaves to let them cool off (or, being an evil bitch that she is, simply stands there and listens). Derek moves away reluctantly, but only a little bit – his hands are still on the bare skin of Stiles’ back, making him wonder how the hell they have gotten under his shirt.

“Who was that?”

They are both breathless, looking at each other intensely, their foreheads pressed together, everything intertwined.

“Lydia the make-up artist. She hates it when I ruin my hair after she does it.”

“Sorry.” Derek kisses him again, apparently not sorry at all, but pulls away with a frustrated moan and a pained smile on his too-red lips. “Come to my place tonight?”

Stiles wants to ask a lot of things, like if this is a booty call and if it’s all right with Isaac, but Derek is making it really hard to form sentences by sucking on the sensitive skin of his neck, and he just breathes out, “Yes, fucking _yes_ , just please stop doing that, I have a shoot in, like, thirty minutes and I bruise like a peach.”

He gets a cocky laughter for an answer. “Then I guess Lydia the make-up artist will have a little more work to do than just your hair.”

“You fucker,” Stiles giggles, but then pushes Derek away. “Seriously though, I have work to do. You should go before I lock the door, tell my boss to fuck off and ride you like a cowboy in this very chair. Don’t make me ruin the chair, it’s my favorite chair. And I really like my job as well, they have my name written on the wall of the studio in huge letters and all.”

They do engage in another kiss before Stiles shoves Derek out. Lydia slides right in the next second (the pervert!) and without further ado motions him to sit.

“So the boob thing didn’t work, huh,” she drops matter-of-factly, examining his reflection in the mirror while rummaging through the cabinet in search for the supplies.

Stiles still feels too turned-on to have a normal conversation, so he just shakes his head no.

“All right then. Let’s all hope you’re not making a huge mistake with this guy.” She turns to him, a comb and a hairspray in her hands and an evil smirk on her lips. “But if you ruin your perfect hair again, I swear to God you’ll get it. Both of you.”

Stiles knows better than to talk back when she is like this, so he nods meekly and prepares himself to play a statue for the next couple of minutes. If only he could learn not to breathe.

 

 Isaac looks terrified and enchanted at the same time by what is happening on the screen, and he laughs so hard his pallid cheeks bright up with color and his eyes begin to shine like dimes. Derek sits near him the whole time smiling calmly and freaking out on the inside. But everything seems to go just fine, and the choice of episodes has turned out to be excellent: Isaac loves the one where Stiles gets chased around the studio by a midget wrestler overly fond of Stiles’ cheekbones, the one with the three sisters all in love with the same man is hilarious not only due to Stiles’ puns (although Isaac doesn’t understand most of them, he enjoys the reaction of the audience), but simply because of the bizarre air about the whole situation, and the one where a guest proposes to his ex-wife’s grandmother, a trashmouth redneck with no teeth and a lot of attitude, is exceptionally funny (especially the part where the toothless granny-bride kisses Stiles on the cheek and he wails quietly right into the microphone).

Derek has had to watch at least five dozen of the episodes to pick the most innocent ones, and his hard work has panned out – Isaac falls for Stiles so hard that for a moment Derek actually contemplates getting jealous. It is innocent, of course, for Isaac is just a kid who likes funny people, nothing sexual about it, and when the episodes are over, Derek feels a huge burden lifting from his shoulders: this whole time Isaac has been holding Derek’s laptop in his lap, which has never happened before. It’s a nice step forward.

“Here,” Derek navigates his browser sliding his index finger over the touchpad. “Watch this music video, it’s that band you liked yesterday on the iPod, remember?”

Isaac looks at the Youtube page with a tad of suspicion, but then the music starts to play and he relaxes immediately. Meanwhile Derek slides quietly out of the room, hoping that his absence won’t be noticed at least for a couple of minutes.

“Yello,” Laura’s low voice says in his ear.

Derek does not really like to ask her for favors – in his book, Laura has already done enough for him, – but the stupid situation he has found himself in requires one more.

“Hey,” he begins a bit sheepishly. “Listen, the last time we saw each other. . . How are you doing, by the way?”

He can hear her clicking her tongue at him. “Bro, quit beating around the bush, you don’t really care, so do me a fucking favor and just cut to the chase already.”

 He actually does care, but this is not a good time to have a stupid argument. Besides, he must be quick – any time now Isaac can remember that the tool of Satan is sitting right in his lap and flip out.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine, Derek. I’m an asshole, you’re an asshole – we’re a family of assholes, small but proud. What’s up?”

“Well, it’s this thing. . . Danny is not around tonight and I have someone coming over, but Isaac–”

“Say no more, little bro, when shall I pick the little dude up?” Laura says, voice practically vibrating with excitement. “How about six?”

“Sounds great! Thanks, you’re a life-saver.”

“You do understand you will have to give me all the dirty details for this, right?” She cackles, suddenly not so pleasant at all, and hangs up. Derek makes a face at the phone in his hand and returns to the room.

The music video is still playing, but Isaac is not watching – his eyes are cold and glassy, and Derek doesn’t like these eyes for he knows what they stand for. He sits carefully next to his ward, takes the laptop away and shuts it, then gently pulls Isaac in for a hug. He can feel soft shallow breathing tickling the sensitive skin below his collarbone, and then there is moisture.

“Here, here now,” Derek says, not able to think of anything else – he has no idea what has triggered the poor guy this time. “What’s up, Isaac? I’m here, it’s fine, everything will be okay. Why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” Isaac whispers between the miserable sobs that shake his frail body. “I don’t know.”

A story helps, just like they always do, and soon Isaac is calm and complaisant again, but Derek doesn’t want to risk it, so he fires off a text to Laura calling the whole thing off and calls Danny for the twelfth time this day so he could give him Stiles’ number, but it goes to voicemail again. It must be crazy where he is now – Danny usually calls back within two hours. For a moment or two Derek seriously considers calling the program and asking for Stiles, but who would let him speak to the very host? Judging from what Derek has seen today, people go crazy about Stiles Stilinski, if he answered the line, they would be harassing him non-stop.

So Derek lets Isaac fall asleep in his arms, tucks him in with great care and then wanders to the kitchen to make dinner. Cooking always helps. It is a process that he can control, has been able to since he was old enough to be on kitchen duty at the community, which was his favorite pastime. Every single thing is under his control, everything starts when he gives the command and ends when he wishes it to. The smell of the cooking food is soothing, the monotonous operations bring peace to the bundle of wretched thoughts that is now his soul.

The home-made spaghetti is all ready to be put in the boiling water when the doorbell rings, and Derek’s heart immediately sinks. For a second he fools himself into believing it is Laura, who has disobeyed him and still came, but as the anxiety inside him grows the closer he comes, it is impossible to pretend.

Stiles looks as awkward and scared as the first time Derek saw him at his threshold, but this time he is still wearing a suit from work, which makes him look older than his actual age. Stiles darts a panicky look at him and rattles off in what seems to Derek about two seconds altogether, “Please don’t kiss me or I’ll put out like some local whore every guy on the block got their first head from, I might have gone overboard in there today and kind of got caught up in the moment, don’t think I do this all the time, because I totally don’t, you’ve been my first kiss since a _long_ time and I sort of went a bit crazy, but _gosh, why do you have to be so hot_?”

It takes Derek about five seconds to fully process the message by mentally dividing it into smaller sentences that actually make sense. After that he quietly steps away and motions for his guest to come in.

“But be quiet, Isaac is sleeping.”

He leads the shaking and fidgety Stiles to the kitchen and gives him ginger tea with honey. Then he turns back to cooking – it is easier this way, he doesn’t want eye contact now.

“I shouldn’t have come to your workplace, and the. . . other thing was my fault as well, you have nothing to be worried about. I don’t think poorly of you, if that’s what you are so worried about.”

Without the make-up that was on Stiles at work Derek can see dark circles under his eyes – the signs of sleep deprivation. He must have been telling the truth when he said he had been having insomnia.

“I just thought you had an old-fashioned upbringing, with your history and all,” Stiles mumbles, looking at his toes dancing a little with unrest. “You’ve been probably taught to shun people who are easy or promiscuous, but I’m not like that. What you see on TV is an exaggerated version of me, and I know I joke a lot about relationships and love, but _my_ life and _my_ relationships are not a joke to me.”

There is a nasty little voice in Derek’s head that urges him to leave everything as it is, make it Stiles’ fault, since he is practically offering, but the voice gets choked before more poison can escape. Derek turns, cleans his hands on a towel, then lowers himself to his knees and carefully embraces Stiles’ thighs. The position is far too intimate, but Derek can’t help it – this is what he needs right now.

“I want to tell you something. Nobody knows about it, but I think you should, especially if you are going to stick around.”

  “You can count on that,” Stiles says with a smirk, but his voice is weak and trembling a bit. He is clearly uncomfortable being touched so intimately, but Derek doesn’t let go. He can’t.

“Sometimes I hear Reverend Lahey, Isaac’s bastard of a father and the leader of my community back when I was still part of it.”

“What?” Stiles’ voice suddenly drops into a whisper.

“He was a terrible man, ruthless and totally unforgiving, but his sermons were so powerful even I cannot deny it, no matter how much I hate the guy. And his voice. . . It has somehow found a place in my head and even now, ten years after I last saw him, it is still there, telling me what’s wrong and what’s right, who I am and who I should be ashamed of being.”

He looks up and catches Stiles’ confused gaze with his own. He is usually so careful with guarding himself from the outside world, but this experience is completely different from what he has had since Kate – for the first time in a long while he actually feels a strong need to open up and to be understood, so he continues.

“The voice is trying to provoke a sense of shame in me for being attracted to you, it tells me how sinful it is to have homosexual desires, that it comes from Satan. I don’t want to believe it, but sometimes it does influence my decisions. Today, when I came to your workplace, I had just gotten very bad news from the lawyer working on Isaac’s case and I was pissed at the Reverend. I really wanted to see you, but I was also driven by this disgusting desire to hurt the bastard by disobeying him, by showing him how little I care. But the truth is I still care. A part of me still believes every word he has ever told me.”

There is a heavy silence between them, but Stiles doesn’t draw his eyes away – he just sits there very quietly, staring at Derek with his mouth open for several excruciatingly long seconds, and Derek can feel the muscles of his thighs tensing. Finally Stiles swallows and says dryly, “This would make a great story for my show. A cult survivor can’t accept having the hots for another guy who is afraid of physical contact, and it all happens because the survivor’s head is occupied and fucked regularly by the malicious cockblocking voice of a child molesting reverend. Everyone is fucked up and nobody is happy – this is pure gold, my man.” He then gives Derek a weak smile, “Humor is my way of coping with things, sorry.”

Derek scoffs and pushes Stiles’ legs closer so they could enfold his ribcage, then winds his arms around his waist. “I think I can kind of make out already when you joke.”

“Which is probably your subtle way of pointing out that I joke a lot.” Stiles gives him a sheepish smile and puts his hand on Derek’s head, fingers seeping through his hair. His other hand cups Derek’s cheek. “I’m not really good at handling such conversations, usually I stutter a lot and joke inappropriately.”

“I’m not fishing for sympathy, Stiles. I just felt you needed to know this about me.”

“At least now all the stigmatizing makes sense,” Stiles lifts one corner of his lips in a ghost of a smile, his thumb drawing circles on Derek’s skin. “Okay, tit for tat, I figure your skeletons have all the right to meet mine.”

Derek realizes the polite thing to do would be to object, but the truth is he really wants to get his price for being honest, he wants to know what this person he has just opened up to is hiding behind the pretty foreside, so he remains quiet and demonstrates his utmost attention.

Stiles sucks in a shaky breath – it clearly is difficult for him to find the right words. Eventually he does, and once he starts, there is no stopping him.

“When I was fifteen, I started dating this guy from my school. I was obsessed with him, had been for quite a while before we started going out, and everything seemed like a fairytale in the beginning. He was a jock with a good reputation and I was a geeky weirdo with a camera, we had absolutely nothing in common but for us being the only two kids in the whole school open about our sexual deviancies. It may not have happened so suddenly as I remember, but for me one day the fairytale just ended, and thus began the horror. He wouldn’t probably have had the guts to do all the things he did to me if I hadn’t been so desperately in love. But I was, and I didn’t react like a normal person with the right amount of self-respect would.

I made myself forget the worst parts, but when I finally built up enough spunk to break up with him, I was perfectly convinced I was a worthless piece of shit nobody would ever find attractive. That’s what he told me the last time we spoke. He might have also added people would sleep with me purely out of pity or to win a bet. And I know, don’t, I know it’s not true, but it is still inside me like some freaking poison. In here, with my mind, I understand how stupid it all is, but I can’t help it.”

Stiles makes a long pause, in which he sits quietly with his gaze drawn away and his shoulders slouching. “This is why I always choose unreachable people to be obsessed about and feel uncomfortable when it gets physical with someone. Because of one fucking asshole. This is ridiculous, I know, but you told me why you were fucked up and I’m showing you my cards in return. I know it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through –”

“On the contrary,” Derek interrupts, suddenly very much aware of how close their faces are now to each other. “Don’t you see? Both of us let spirits of our past interfere with our lives. Doesn’t seem that different to me.”

“Yeah, with one small difference: my abusive boyfriend at least didn’t attempt to murder my entire family,” Stiles blurts out but then flinches, scared of his own mouth, and tries to shove away.

Derek doesn’t let him – he holds on tight and wins simply because he is stronger.

“Stay. Stay,” he says softly. “Unless my being so close makes you nervous.”

Stiles stops fighting and gives in. Something changes in his eyes when he hears Derek’s words, the haze of anxiety dissipates and what is behind that is pure vulnerability. “No, it’s different with you,” he half-whispers and traces Derek’s jawline with his index finger. “I’ve never felt this calm before with anyone in my life. Er. . . I’m pretty sure I’m being too straightforward about this, but I still feel like I should tell you.”

The words are precariously hanging from his lips, and Derek moves closer, eager to hear them, but then Stiles suddenly cuts the distance between them and presses their lips together. There is the same dizzy feeling as before in Derek’s whole body, engulfing him and shaking him to the core, but at the same time it is different from the first time. Nobody rushes, the clothes stay on for now, and Derek simply lets himself enjoy the peace and quiet that finally settles in his mind.

Stiles is in great shape, but he is somehow still soft to the touch, and Derek takes his time exploring the crane of his long neck, his sensitive earlobes, his beautiful clavicles – these especially, since the very first touch of Derek’s lips makes Stiles wriggle and stifle a moan deep in his throat.

“Don’t, don’t,” Stiles whispers, breath uneven and shaky, but he is getting hot and yielding in Derek’s hands, so this is actually a yes.

 Having unbuttoned Stiles’ shirt, Derek slides his hand alongside his bare skin, the other supporting Stiles by the small of his back, and then the enticing smell gets the better of him and he leans in to have a taste. Stiles gasps like a fish out of the water and pulls at Derek’s hair, the abs of his beautiful stomach contracting.

“Oh fuck, please,” he breathes out and pulls Derek’s face up for another kiss.

When the doorbell rings, they hardly register the sound, but Derek does notice the sound of the door to his room opening. He pulls away, trying to catch his breath and start thinking straight.

“Derek?” Isaac’s voice calls from the corridor. There is still a bit of sleepiness in it, but for the most part it is fear. “Are you in? Is that? . . . Is that you?”

 “Damn,” he mutters and gets up hastily, giving Stiles an apologetic brush on the cheek with his fingertips. He hurries out just to see Isaac standing at the edge of his room and looking warily at the front door. “Derek!” he exclaims, relieved. “Who is that?”

“I’ll go get it, don’t worry,” Derek commands. “Stay inside.”

He looks in the peephole, but it is too dark in the landing to make something out, so he calls out, “Who is it?”

“Open up, dimwit, it’s big sis,” Laura’s voice informs him. “Why do you look like you’ve been working out with a stick up your ass?” she says instead of a greeting after a short inspection and then steps inside. “I know you told me not to come, but your text sounded stressed, so I came to give you a hand with the little dude. Is he still sleeping? Fuck, I’m so thirsty I could kill someone for their blood. Do you have soda?”

She rushes to the kitchen faster than Derek can stop her, but then she comes to a sudden halt, and Derek, trapped in the small corridor, looks over her shoulder to find his guest sitting perfectly still in his seat and sipping chilled ginger tea, shirt buttoned up. He looks quite decent except for the swollen too-red lips, and when Laura turns to face Derek, there is a sly all-knowing smile on her face.

“Where in the name of fuck did you catch this pretty fish? He looks adorable!”

“Wait till I open my mouth, lady,” Stiles says with an evil smirk. “Hi, I’m Stiles.”

“What kind of name is that?” she frowns.

“The kind that doesn’t suck,” he retorts, unabashed. “I used to have another name which no one in school could pronounce, so I started calling myself Stiles, and when I turned eighteen, I changed it legally.”

“Well, at least you’re more than eighteen, that sure is a relief,” Laura smirks, giving Derek a dirty look. “Wouldn’t want my little bro here in jail for lusting after an underage ass, even as pretty as yours.” Then she notices the raw spaghetti sticks that are still lying on the table waiting for their turn and beams. “Cool, I’m just in time for dinner!”

“That’s my rude sister Laura,” Derek introduces her with a sigh.

Then Isaac comes out upon hearing familiar voices, and it suddenly gets very crowded.

“I saw your show today!” Isaac shares with Stiles, sitting very close to him, their hips touching slightly, and looking at him with excitement.

“Show?” Laura asks with her mouth full of the undercooked spaghetti Derek let her have after long whining. “You work on TV?”

“Stiles is _famous_!” Isaac answers before Stiles even opens his mouth, which is a first. “He is the host of a show, it’s very funny and silly. I like it.”

“Huh?” She turns to Derek, surprise and worry written on her face, but he ignores it.

“It sure is a pity your guests have a strong chance of going to Hell for adultery and a number of other sins,” Isaac chirrups on in his sweet voice, “but they can always repent to the Lord.”

After the long silence that follows, Stiles ekes out, “I’ll make sure to tell them that.”

The dinner is even weirder when Danny comes home after his trip. The poor guy looks underfed and sleep-deprived, which makes Isaac nervous and forgetful. This, in turn, alarms Derek, and the chain reaction results in all of them having a very stressful dinner.

When the ordeal is finally over, Danny goes straight to bed, too tired to keep good company, and Laura pushes Derek into having a private conversation (she obviously wants to know the news on the case), but he cannot leave Stiles unattended, it would be even ruder than making him go through this crappy evening.

“That’s okay,” Stiles springs up to his feet. “I can hang with Isaac while you guys talk, it’s totally cool.”

“Are you sure?” Derek asks, putting an arm around his shoulders and leaning in closer to whisper. “He is very unpredictable and can get very upset without any reason. It freaks people out.”

Stiles flashes him a confident smirk, “I’m not people, I’m the guy from TV that he likes. It’s going to be just fine, dude, relax. You do your thing with your sister, and we will watch some videos in your room. Sound good?”

Usually Derek never leaves Isaac alone with strangers, but Stiles is not a stranger anymore. When he and Isaac leave the kitchen, Laura takes a pack of cigarettes from her purse and lights one. She seems calm, but Derek imagines invisible riffles over the plain surface of her soul – something is clearly bugging her.

“So?” she demands after a few drags. “What did he say?”

Derek sighs and sits next to her. He doesn’t smoke, but the process of her doing so somehow makes him a little less nervous, even though he hates cigarettes.

“That we might not have a case,” he admits reluctantly. “The community supplied the alleged DNA from Lahey’s personal belongings, and it didn’t match the one we’ve got after Isaac’s forensic examination. They are now trying to push the idea through that Lahey was not his biological father and Isaac was raped by someone else he is actually related to, but he is mentally deranged and things got mixed up in his head. Besides, they told the judge I was making Isaac say those things because I wanted to con them out of their money and ruin their community’s reputation due to a personal grudge. This is all not a big deal if we find the actual Lahey and get the DNA from him, but it’s still not good.”

“It sucks ass, right,” she agrees, but Derek cuts her off – more is coming out of him.

“They also contacted our lawyer and threatened to sue me for that accident ten years ago if I didn’t drop the charges against Lahey.”

“They what?” she yelps, choking on the smoke. “Those fucking ungrateful bastards! Well, let’s see them try, they have nothing on you! Just let them fucking try!”

Derek asks her to be quiet – he still hasn’t told any of this to Isaac and he doesn’t want him to find out now, not with Stiles keeping him company.

“I don’t know, but they’re not stupid, they must have something to bring me down,” he says, suddenly losing all the interest in the conversation. Right now he just wants everyone to disappear or to fall asleep suddenly so he could grab Stiles and explain to him that this whole exhibit of bad timing is not what usually happens in his life. It has just been a very hard and strange day.

“The hell they do!” Laura scoffs. “They hardly even step outside their fenced territory, how the fuck should they know how to collect evidence for a ten-year-old crime? I’m telling you, they’re full of it.”

“That still leaves the chance of Isaac being mentally deranged. I haven’t had him checked yet, he might as well be. But the first time I took him to a hospital was for the sexual assault evidence collection, he is still freaked out about it. I have no idea how another procedure might affect him. . .” He pauses and rubs his forehead with his fists. “Oh my God, I can’t believe this is actually happening. I don’t even know what to do now, whom to turn to.”

“Now, now, little bro, don’t crack,” she says half-teasingly, but there is still great care in her voice. She lights another cigarette and asks for something stronger than tea. Derek knows she smokes and drinks far too much, but can’t say no to her. “So listen,” she continues and takes a sip of wine from her glass. “You said some girl saw Lahey in action and helped Isaac escape. What was her name again?”

“Cora. She’s your sister, in case you’ve forgotten.”

Laura just shrugs. “Our folks have made so many of us I find it hard to keep track. She was probably an infant when I left. So this Cora person. Is she a motherfucking Christ-loving bitch like all of them or is she trapped like we used to be?”

The question catches Derek off guard, and he really doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t remember Cora all that well either – when he turned sixteen and got thrown out of the community, she had barely turned six. She was always quiet, kept to herself, played with her little dolls all alone – he barely even saw her. When Isaac told him about Cora, how she had walked in on Reverend Lahey doing things to his own son and covering up his perversions with the name of Lord and how she had given him one of Derek’s letters with his address and phone number, Derek immediately went there to speak to her. Nobody let him past the gate, of course, and after three fruitless days Derek gave up, thinking he had enough on Lahey. Perhaps he should have been more persistent, he should have stayed there longer.

“I haven’t had the chance to get to know her,” he finally admits. “Isaac won’t speak to me about the whole matter, but if she was the one who had spread the rumors about Isaac being possessed, then there is no hope.”

“Shit, she might be just as brain-washed,” Laura agrees, her voice low and bitter. “Did they do to the little dude the same things they usually do to those they think are possessed?”

Derek nods. He has no desire to voice all the monstrosities the community does – this way it is hard for him to think of them as people. Laura has long drawn a line between her family and those she considered human beings, but Derek cannot be as harsh. He still writes letters, once a month, sends some money and presents at Christmas, although he is pretty sure the grown-ups don’t let their kids near his packages. Right now he is pissed at his family and the whole small community consisting of about twelve families altogether, but he cannot deny still caring about them.

“Bastards,” Laura mutters. “Fucking heartless bastards. Hey, maybe I could go talk to that Cora kid – it’s been fifteen years since everyone saw me in there, I can pretend to be some social worker or someone else they would be obliged to let in. She might open up and tell me where Lahey is hiding – I’m pretty sure they all know. What do you think?”

“No, someone will remember you, trust me,” Derek shakes his head. “Besides, you have enough on your plate.”

“Well, I could help with the search of the old perv,” she suggests.

“How? Do you know anyone who’s in the police?”

“I dated a police officer once.”

Derek rolls his eyes and stands up, “Okay, I’ll keep you posted when I figure out how exactly you can help.”

Before she leaves, Laura gives him an awkward hug, which she only did when he was a confused and suicidal teenager striving to survive under her wing.

“The first thing I’m gonna do when I get home,” she promises with a smile, waiting for the elevator to come, “is Google the shit out of that hot piece of ass you’ve got there. By the way, I never apologized for ruining your date.”

A whole series of inappropriate images, all of them from Stiles’ show, march through Derek’s head, but before he flips out he remembers that Laura actually enjoys filthy stuff like that – so this probably means Stiles will become her favorite buddy. He is not sure whether this thought is soothing or disturbing.

When he enters his room, Stiles and Isaac are on the bed watching some cartoon on Youtube. Both seem pretty calm, but Derek still fells a bit of tension in the air. He sits next to Stiles, their thighs touching, and watches with them for a while.

When the episode comes to an end, Isaac rips his distant gaze off the screen and looks straight at Derek, all innocence and curiosity.

“Is Stiles your betrothed?”

“What now?” Stiles asks, his body going completely stiff. Then he starts talking, turning from Isaac to Derek so fast his head might actually fall off at some point. “Isaac, where did you get such a ridiculous idea? Hey, man, I didn’t say anything like that to him, honest to God or whatever. We weren’t even speaking all that much, were we, Isaac? So what the hell? I mean, I know everyone wants to marry Stiles Stilinski, duh, but why did you think we were each other’s betrothed? This is nuts, people, I didn’t sign up for this!”

He strives to get up, but Derek puts a dominant hand in the center of his chest and makes him stay put. “Calm down, Stiles, it’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” he bites back. “Well then how do you explain your little son here getting us married in his head? And I can’t even cook!”

“Now you’re not making any sense,” Derek says, stifling a smile. “But if you’re worried about that, I can cook, you’ll get to do the dusting – I hate it with all my heart.”

“Really?” Stiles sounds almost hurt. “I love dusting, it’s quick and you make things look clean and shiny. It’s pretty much like wizardry.”

“So it’s settled then,” Derek announces and stands up, pulling Stiles along with him. “Come, I’ll explain something to you. Isaac, why don’t you keep reading that book I gave you?”

“Okay,” Isaac says eagerly, totally intact.

When they are in the kitchen again, Derek reaches up to the top shelf to get the ibrik and sets it on the stove to brew them some nice strong coffee. He cannot hold laughter inside him anymore, and Stiles’ pout only makes things worse. It is really nice to be able to laugh in the predicament he is now in, Derek observes. Really nice.

“What in the name of fuck is so damn funny, husband dear?” Stiles drawls in a squeaky voice.

“I’m sorry,” Derek manages through the fit of giggles that attack him mercilessly. “I just told Isaac this story today about two people who had been looking for their betrothed their whole lives. It’s a bit cheesy actually, but I like the ending. Maybe I’ll actually write it someday.”

 “So?” Stiles demands, not satisfied at all.

“He has this habit of projecting all my stories into real life, looking for evidence of their existence. When I retold him the plot of one of my novels, the one you read, he made it his mission to find out if Danny was a werewolf. Finally he forgot about it, but only after I distracted him with another story. He may be sixteen, but deep down he’s a little kid and he lives in a fantasy world full of adventures waiting behind every corner.”

He hands Stiles his cup of fresh coffee, the smell of which fills the whole kitchen, and sits on the floor the same way he did earlier today, embracing Stiles’ thighs. The motion is familiar now, and they both seem surprised at the naturalness of it.

Stiles runs his fingers through Derek’s hair and smiles affectionately. “You do sound like his father, you know that?”

“Why?”

“No, really, you’re a helicopter dad, always hovering not far above, monitoring his every movement. I think it’s hot. Which, in my book, makes you a DILF, Derek Hale.”

“A what?” asks Derek, suddenly feeling ancient.

Stiles giggles and gives him a kiss on the nose, “Just own it, you’re a hot dad.”

“All right, but don’t say that in public, or else people might think I had sex at nine.”

They drink coffee like this, Derek with his arms in Stiles’ laps, facing each other. It is stupid, and maybe tomorrow Derek might regret the silly behavior, but right now he is enjoying every second of it. Stiles plays with Derek’s hair and tells him stories about his best friend Scott the veterinarian and Allison the technical director of his show, his ex-crush and now loyal galpal Lydia the make-up artist, her complicated relationship with Jackson the producer, Danny the cameraman (who turns up, half-asleep and groggy, to get some water right when Stiles mentions him and stares at them weirdly) and some other people Stiles thinks are important in his life.

“By the way, my dad’s a sheriff,” he remembers, all excited again. “What if I were to ask him to pull some police strings and help look for Isaac’s dad?”

Derek feels as if he had just been woken up from a blissful slumber. He has totally forgotten about that, mind captivated by the stories. “Sorry, I can’t let you do that,” he says bitterly. He doesn’t want to elaborate, but Stiles looks very confused, so he keeps going. “I want you in my life, Stiles, but I don’t want my problems to be yours, all right?”

“But your son practically gave us his blessing! The dusting-cooking collaboration is perfect, don’t you see? I can’t leave my betrothed in peril!”

He is playing silly, of course, a charming half-smile on his face, but his eyes are far from being joyous. _Let me help_ , they say, _I want to be in that part of your life_.

“I’m sorry, no,” Derek says, more firmly this time, and he really means it.

Stiles is a smart guy and he knows when to back off, so he does. They stay talking till midnight, but when the two hands of the clock on the wall meet, Stiles says it is time he went home. They make it the whole way into the hall when something takes over Derek – he suddenly kills the light, shoves Stiles against the door and bites him harshly on the neck.

“What– Ah, stop!” Stiles gasps in a shaky whisper, but it is too late and he is already melting in Derek’s arms, soft, pliable and panting heavily. “Oh please, don’t, Derek, stop–”

The more he says it, the harder it gets for Derek to hold himself – too good it feels, too right. Why does Stiles keep telling him to stop when every part of his body, every shiver, every moan urges him to pursue the opposite? Derek doesn’t see any sense in it, but then again, there is no sense in waiting several hours only to pin the guy you are crazy about to the front door when your so-called son and your friend are just several feet away, supposedly sleeping.

Derek is about to sink his hands into the open fly of Stiles’ pants when a distinct cough makes both of them freeze in horror. Slowly, Derek turns, praising God for the light being off because Danny must not have seen much in this darkness.

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Danny utters and then engages in a desperate fight with a monstrous yawn. “First of all, you might think you’re being sneaky, but the truth is you woke me up.”

“Sorry?” Stiles squeaks, still panting and shivering a little. It does not help Derek to cool down at all.

“Secondly,” Danny continues, leaning against the wall in order not to sway. “Stiles, you have a gig tomorrow, do you really want to look like an overripe peach that had a bad fall? In case you don’t know, make-up doesn’t help much if you stand close to the audience. People notice.”

 “Oh,” Stiles says curtly.

“And finally. Isaac may be open to the gay thing due to living under one roof with me and Derek’s careful preparation, but I really don’t think he is ready to see Derek, who is his only connection to the real world at the moment, in such a piquant situation. Besides, this is not setting a good example for him, both of you should know better. Okay, I’m out.”

He disappears behind the bathroom door, leaving the two of them to break and work out the awkward silence. Stiles is the one who gives away a short nervous laugh first, making Derek smile.

“He is right, I should go.”

They work together on making Stiles presentable for going outside, and Derek closes the door behind them to wait for the elevator with him. He still has his shirt unbuttoned, his neck and chest feeling a bit chilly from wet kisses. It is a great feeling, but what beats it is staring into each other’s eyes and grinning like lunatics – just another stupid thing he likes about this controversial day.

“Well, this is it,” Stiles announces when the elevator doors open, inviting him in. He darts to Derek and presses their lips together for a good-bye kiss. “To be continued,” he promises, gives Derek a playful bite on the earlobe and then whispers almost inaudibly, “Don’t disappear on me again.”

The next moment Derek finds himself standing outside of his apartment alone and feeling somehow full and empty at the same time. This is something new, something he still is to figure out, but not now – it has, after all, been a trying day, his whole being is aching for a good night’s rest. All the problems and all the new feelings will be best tackled tomorrow, when everything seems a tad less vehement and oddly magical. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The butt-kicking from the Universe finally worked and I got back to writing this story.  
> Also, I've never been to Arizona, but Google tells me there's a desert there. Sorry if I have messed something up!

“Son,” his dad starts carefully, “are you in trouble with these people? Just tell me if there are lawsuits involved.”

Stiles skips nervously on one spot, pressing his phone so tight to his ear it starts to give him throbbing signals of pain. “I’m not in any kind of trouble, just please, dad, do me a solid on this one.”

He is in the middle of nowhere, his rental being the only vehicle on the empty road stretching far in both directions, the only line of civilization in these untamed sands. No buildings around, no people – only the faded sky above and some indistinct shades of birds flying far away.

 _Fucking Arizona with its deserts_.

“Listen, I’ve heard a thing or two about these folks you want me to look into,” his dad starts again, irritation tracing in his tone. “They are not someone you want to be involved with, especially that reverend of theirs. Wait, is this for your program? Are you going to make a story about these freaks?”

“No, dad,” Stiles whines and lets out an exasperated huff. “This is not for TV, I’m on my own here.”

“But I thought you were supposed to shoot a story in Texas.”

“We finished earlier, I sent my crew home and now I’m working against the clock because when my boss finds out I bailed on them, he is going to freak.”

“So this is some personal project?” his dad specifies.

The scorching sun turns Stiles into a malicious sweaty monster, so he snaps, “Yes, dad! I told the guys there’d been an emergency at home, but Jackson won’t buy it, very soon he’ll start calling and nagging my ass about it, so could you please _fucking hurry_ with this?”

“Language,” his dad says drily. “All right, I’ll call you back as soon as I find something out.”

“Thanks, dad!” Stiles jumps with joy, but only gets more sand in his shoes and stops.

“Yeah, well, you could actually come and visit, being in the same state and all.”

There is clear reproach in his voice, but Stiles brushes it off – he has no time for this, it is miraculous enough he has managed to get two days off to pursue this thing. He promises, however, to do his best and runs back to the car, excited.

The ride through Arizona is so boring that very soon Stiles feels if he doesn’t talk to someone, he might actually die. So he calls Scott, who is right in the middle of some sophisticated checkup on a sick pooch.

“Your life is so simple,” Stiles sighs when he is filled in on all the details.

“Like yours isn’t. Erica says hi, by the way. Oh, and now she is flipping you the bird.”

“Tell her to blow me. And no, my life is not simple, my animal-loving shit of a friend Scott,” Stiles says with a smile blossoming on his lips, “because you’ll never guess where I am now.”

“From the sound of it, you’re driving. Wait, is that why you’re nagging me at work? Because you’re bored?”

Stiles giggles, “Whatever, dude, listen. I’m in Arizona now, but my final destination is San Diego, California.”

“What’s in San Diego, California? Hold on, are you going home? Is there something wrong with Sheriff S?”

Stiles takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm. He has been friends with Scott since he moved to Chicago, but the guy has never been able to remember where Stiles was from. Well, at least he got the California part right.

“No, dumbass, I’m on a secret mission to help a damsel in distress, damsel being Derek and distress being a really fucked up situation he is now in.”

“Oh.” Scott is just like Stiles’ dad – he wants his friend to be happy, but the thought of him being in a same-sex relationship bums him out. He is not so good at hiding it as the sheriff though. “Dude, Allison really hates this guy’s guts, are you sure you want to help him?”

“No offence, man, but Allison can shut her pretty pie hole, she knows nothing about Derek and has no right to judge him based on what her batshit crazy aunt has fed her.”

It might have been a bit too spiteful, Stiles observes, but it is too late now anyway. There is a short silence, then Scott mumbles, “Sorry, man.”

“It’s fine. Now ask me what the secret mission is!”

“All right, what is the secret mission you are on?”

Stiles makes a pause, thrilled to the core, and then exclaims, “I am going to reconcile Derek with his family and find the bad guy who hurt his son!”

“His son?” Scott parrots dumbly. “He has a son? _Dude_.”

“Don’t _dude_ me, it’s his legal ward, but same difference. The important thing is Derek needs someone’s help to put the sick motherfucker behind bars, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

The times when Stiles told Scott everything are long gone, and it is still weird sometimes for him to filter his words and withhold something important when speaking to his best friend, but that’s how they are now, no sugarcoating it. Besides, Isaac is Derek’s personal business and Stiles has done enough already to disturb his privacy – he owes Derek this much.

“And did Derek himself ask you to drive all the way to San Diego, California, and speak to his family?”

Stiles taps his fingers on the steering wheel, getting nervous by the minute. He hates it when Scott starts actually using his brain.

“No.”

“How do you know he has problems with his family?”

This is getting ridiculous, did Scott swallow a bottle of pills that make you radically sharp?

“I kind of heard his conversation with his sister.”

“You mean eavesdropped on them?”

“Semantics, Scott, don’t be a pain in the ass! What matters is that Derek is too proud to ask for my help when he clearly needs it.”

Scott lets out the exact same sigh as Stiles’ father when he is disappointed, which is extremely alarming, considering the two have never met. “Stiles, you can’t stick your nose into other people’s business like that. I’m sure you, being the most generous and giving person I know, offered your help to this Derek guy, but he said no, right?”

“Maybe?” Stiles mutters weakly, already feeling immensely sorry. He should have known better than to call Scott on his good day.

“God, dude, why are you being such a tool then? Do you even realize what this shit can do to your newly-born relationship? You’ve made out a couple of times and already you give yourself the right to interfere in his private life? Bug his family? Seriously?”

“But I’m helping!”

“Newsflash: not all people want help, Stiles! I know that you have this insatiable need to solve every single problem in the world, but you can’t. And besides, has it ever occurred to you that he might think you are trying to make a story for your show out of it?”

A pang of guilt echoes in Stiles’ chest at that, but admitting his former motivation to Scott would be too embarrassing, not to mention he would never put Isaac through such an ordeal.

“This is _not for TV_ , Scott, what the fuck?!” he yells, doing his best to sound indignant.

“Dude, think. You do reuniting stories on your show pretty often, and from what you’ve told me, his family is from some kind of a cult. Your audience loves shit like that, they would be glued to the screen, seriously, especially if you reveal that Derek is actually a famous writer _and_ your boyfriend. Call me crazy, but this is the perfect equation for a kick-ass story on the Stiles Stilinski show.”

“You’re crazy,” Stiles snaps, but the bitter attack has no effect on Scott.

“Dude,” he exhales, clearly disappointed, and this is the last straw that finally breaks the barrier holding Stiles.

“All my life, Scott!” he yells sharply, suddenly painfully aware of how upset he now is. “I’ve been doing this all my life: investigating, talking to people, finding solutions to their problems! This is what I know and this is what I do! It’s not about Derek anymore, it’s about the fucking kid whose dad did a number on him and got away with it, and I can’t take it, because this is _wrong_! If I can do something to bring the scumbag to justice, I will, and Derek can shove his damn pride up his ass, I don’t care!”

He has never hung up on Scott, but there is always a first time for everything. The driving doesn’t seem boring for fifteen more minutes during which Stiles continues arguing with Scott in his head and sometimes out loud, but with all the desert around it feels incredibly creepy.

Then his dad calls.

“Listen, I’ve texted you their address and some pictures I’ve managed to dig up. That okay for now?” He sounds tired, but also strangely accelerated, as if helping Stiles brought him out of the pond of boredom he had been splashing in for years and rejuvenated his idle heart.

“Yeah, thanks a million, dad! But wait, what have you found out about Reverend Lahey? Are they even trying to find him?”

His dad goes quiet for a long while. “It’s complicated, Stiles,” he finally utters, reluctance in his every syllable. “He has strong friends somewhere upstairs, they are stifling the manhunt as much as they can.”

“So I’ve heard.” Stiles tries really hard not to sound upset. “But you and your cop friends can do something about it, right?”

“Are you absolutely sure the guy is guilty of what they want him for?”

“Yes, dad, one hundred percent.”

“Then I will do my best to find the cocksucker.”

For a moment Stiles’ mouth forms an “O” of utter shock – never in his life has he heard his dad use words like that in front of him. This case must have really gotten under his skin, which is finally some good news for today: now Stiles isn’t alone on this.

He has lunch at a minute diner and washes it down with some awful coffee, but the waitress’s recognition and pretty decent pancakes on the house cheer him up a little bit. There is no time to linger and chat with the simple folk, who seem to crowd around him with threatening speed as soon as the word gets out, so he hits the road again. There are still many miles to cover.

 

Derek drops on the couch, completely exhausted. This is preposterous, how much effort it takes from him to go through the whole sanity evaluation with Isaac, who lies down on his bed and looks like he had firmly decided to never move again. Poor thing. If Derek only could, he would have gone through the whole thing himself – anything should be better than seeing Isaac clam up like this again, just like in the first couple of days.

He shudders out of the heavy drowse two hours later when the song on his ringtone has already gotten to the second verse. It is Stiles. Oh, right, Derek promised to call.

 “Hey, you,” Stiles’ voice is tired and, for some reason, nervous. “How did everything go?”

Derek sits up with a grunt and darts a wary look at the lying bundle of limbs on the bed that is Isaac. Has he not moved this whole time?

“Um.”

“Oh, were you sleeping? I’m so sorry, man! I was just worried, you said you’d call.”

“No, no, I’m up now. Thank you for calling back. Hey, why don’t I put you on speakerphone and you can tell us about how you are doing?”

There is a slight pause of hesitation on the other end, but then Stiles seems to get the picture. His voice changes, ripens with artificial joy, and Derek is grateful for the effort.

“Hey, Isaac! I’ve been just thinking about you and Derek. Hope you guys are holding up in there! You wanna know what I’m doing? About to kill myself because driving is freaking _boring_. I have no idea how people actually enjoy it. Seriously, it’s been hours and all I’ve seen is sand and some seriously deformed cacti. What do people do here for a living anyway? Maybe they sell sand. To someone who, er, eats sand. For some reason. And I’m not making any sense, which means driving makes me dumb relatively fast.”

“Danny told me you were going to visit your dad,” Derek blurts out, suddenly terrified of the heavy silence that follows.

“Yeah, that. . . Yeah. I’ll be back as soon as possible. I mean, I have a thing at work tomorrow night, Jackson will have my head on a stick if I don’t show up, so I don’t actually have a choice. See you after that?”

“I don’t know. We might have a. . .” He dares a glance in Isaac’s direction, too afraid to remind him of today’s experience, but Isaac doesn’t seem to be listening. He doesn’t move and barely breathes, and the sight makes something inside Derek’s chest clench and crumble. “We’ll see how everything goes, all right?”

“Sure.”

“Well, you should go back to your driving, say bye to Isaac.”

“Bye, Isaac! Lots of love from the land of freaking nowhere!”

There is a low grunt from the pile of limbs on the bed, and then Derek presses the phone to his ears and sneaks out of the room. “So,” he says quietly, “when does your work end tomorrow?”

“First you tell me what the hell happened to Isaac in that hospital,” Stiles demands, all the merriness gone from his voice. The nervous tremor that Derek hears appearing instead makes him want to reach out all the way to Arizona, pull Stiles close to his chest and never let go.

 “He is not very doctor-friendly, I must admit,” is all he says on the phone because Isaac might be listening to their conversation right now. “But it’s almost over, tomorrow is the last day.”

“He will still have to go to court and meet with his lawyer, you know. What I’m saying is you should let the poor dude get out more, meet with people, do things together. Christ, you don’t even let him go to his shrink – she comes to your place!”

 “I see what you mean, but going out is not a good idea for Isaac now.”

“Why?”

 _Why_ , Derek parrots in his head, feeling a flash of anger blazing up in his gut. Stiles obviously does not understand the extent to which the poor boy is traumatized, and how can he really? He has only seen Isaac twice. 

“Look, let’s talk when you get home,” he says finally. “Laura wanted to stick around at my place for Isaac’s therapy session tomorrow if everything goes well after the clinic. Maybe I could take you somewhere. . .”

“Oh, yeah, take me, I’d like that,” Stiles purrs into Derek’s ear, but then there is a distinct sound of something being hit along with an elaborate line of swearwords. “Sorry, man, I suddenly remembered how hot you were. Don’t judge me, I’m fucking dying of boredom here, can I at least entertain myself a little bit? Usually Scott takes me through such long drives, but we had a massive fight about two hours ago and he still hasn’t called back, the heartless bastard.”

 “Give him a call yourself,” Derek suggests. “I can’t stay on the line with you, I have to get back to Isaac and then work on that story.”

“You still haven’t finished it? Gosh, Derek, way to keep your job.” Now Stiles sounds irritated, and Derek can’t help but snort at that.

“What’s so funny?”

“Your mood swings.”

“Ah, my old driving companion. You know, when I drive, I get like a pregnant lady, but way worse.”

“I’d better watch out then,” Derek smirks. “But truth be told, you sound really stressed out. Is something wrong?”

“Er, no, nothing,” Stiles hurries with an answer. “Well, except for this creepy feeling I’m getting that the cacti are staring at me, but it’s all good, man.”

“If you say so.”

Derek’s gut tells him there definitely is something Stiles is hiding from him, but he scratches that – after all, they have only known each other for about two weeks and dated for a couple of days, all of which Stiles has spent on his trip, it would simply be disrespectful for Derek to invade his personal space and make him spill his guts, if there even is anything to spill. Stiles showed an excellent example of good decision-making skills by not getting involved in Derek’s business with Isaac and his family, it is now Derek’s turn to back off.

“Well,” he says in that tone that indicates the rounding-up of the conversation, “have a good time at home and bring me something. What’s your town famous for?”

“Me?” Stiles sniggers. “Just kidding. But no, wait, I’m dead-serious, there is nothing to Beacon Hills but their hot shit sweetheart Stilinski.”

“Then I guess it’s pretty clear what you should bring me back,” Derek says with a smile, making a mental note that his flirting skills have become a tad better. Maybe it is because they are both so busy that they talk on the phone or text all the time instead of making out round the clock like a normal newly-formed couple.

 _You are not a normal couple_ , Reverend Lahey sneers in his head. _You are not a couple at all, Derek, you can’t possibly be. My poor lost boy, how could you let this unrighteous creature spoil and sodomize you?_

Derek pays no heed, but when he is back in the room slouching on the bed and stroking Isaac’s soft hair, the exhaustion of the day finally kicks in and he feels gutted, worn out and completely, utterly lost.

 

“Hey, ladies! I’m awfully sorry to interrupt your, er, whatever it is you’re doing, but could I possibly have a word with you?”

They halt like wild fowl in sight of a hunter’s deadly gun, all three of them, the young ones cowered behind the back of a corpulent elderly woman with a sharp austere face, a deep wrinkle of disapproval between thick eyebrows. The dresses they are wearing are grey and loose, the hems so low they are brushing the dirt on the ground as they walk, their hair is all hidden under headscarves, no way to see if the two girls are blond or brunette, but Stiles immediately sets his eyes upon the one farthest from him and also the youngest. Her face is familiar from the pictures his dad has sent him and also from Laura and Derek’s faces – that one is definitely a Hale.

Before the trip he bought a silver crucifix much like the one he spotted on Isaac and put it on his neck in a naive attempt to prepossess the people he might see coming out of the fenced territory, but the trick didn’t seem to work on the elderly woman – she looks spiteful and ready to fight back with whatever strength she has left in her. The younger ones, however, don’t exude so much hostility and, if it is not wishful thinking, Stiles can see a small trace of curiosity warming their eyes.

He looks up at the fence hoping not to see a jolly team of gunmen aiming at him there, but apparently nobody has been alarmed about his presence yet. How much is there? A minute, maybe less – that is, if the old lady doesn’t start yelling sooner. It shouldn’t take long for the three of the women to take out the trash, their absence will definitely be noticed by those who have arms and the lack of patience to deal with strangers pestering their people.

Stiles had the speech prepared beforehand, he has been revising it the whole five hours he has spent waiting in the ambush till the steel gate finally opened, but the window of opportunity still caught him off-guard, and holy shit, he forgot how the whole religious zealot thing freaks him out. Where is his silver tongue when he needs it most?

“Who are you?” the old woman bellows threateningly.

“I’m from Chicago.” This is not what he planned to start with, but a faint glimmer of recognition in the Hale girl’s eyes makes Stiles’ heart rush faster, and he knows at that moment that this is _her_. “I am a friend of Derek’s. Are you-”

 “Get away from us!” the old woman suddenly turns livid, as if the very name is poison in her ears, and grabs the two younglings harshly by the elbows. “Let us go, girls, it is not safe outside.”

The large brown eyes of the Hale girl struggle to retain the contact with Stiles’ intent gaze, but she is shoved hard towards the gate – and she almost drops to her knees, her long ugly dress in the way. Even after that, she turns and keeps staring – not pleadingly, but with firm determination.

 Stiles doesn’t realize he is making hurried steps towards the small crowd until he hears the old woman screeching, “Don’t come any closer!”

But he doesn’t stop even when she starts hollering for help. He grabs the brown-eyed girl’s hand and yanks her up, making the other girl scream in horror and skedaddle for the gate.

“Listen, Cora, is your name Cora?” he whispers harshly, not recognizing this low, demanding voice that is coming out of him. The girl doesn’t indicate having understood him, but the cold determination in her eyes seems to quiver just a little bit, revealing the mere tip of the iceberg of her inner struggle. His time is running out – danger must be just around the corner, - and so he squeezes her fragile hand urgently and says even quieter, “Please try to meet me tonight, I’ll be around. It’s very important.”

There is no time to make sure Cora – is it even her? – agrees, Stiles leaves her be and makes a run for it before the guns start firing. Only when he drives a mile down the road does he stop and press both his hands to his racing heart, which is beating so intensely his ribcage echoes with flashes of pain all over his chest. When he calms down enough to analyze the situation, a sudden realization strikes him that instead of doing something good he might have unintentionally gotten that Hale girl in big trouble, and even if she wants to meet with him tonight, she won’t be able to.

Is this what Derek meant when he said they were all in love with their rotten leader and that Stiles wouldn’t understand? As soon as that old lady heard Derek’s name, she turned into a wild tigress protecting her cubs, but she can’t be all that bad, right? After all, she was genuinely trying to shield the two girls under her patronage from the evil influence of _Derek’s friend_ , which means she truly believes Derek Hale is bad news. But that woman, she must have children of her own, and those children must have been spending an awful lot of time in Reverend Lahey’s presence when he was around. Any mother would not have allowed it if she had known about that man’s twisted ways, but however much Stiles racks his brain, he is unable to comprehend how a woman, a mother can simply wave off such a gruesome accusation without even considering it to be true. If things are actually the way they look behind that monstrous fence, then yeah, Stiles doesn’t understand.

He kills a couple of hours in the nearby town mainly stress-eating and spilling hot drinks all over himself. More than once the urge to call Derek and confess almost gets the better of him, but when the sun sinks down and the dampness leaks into the air along with the forthcoming darkness, the agitation finally recedes. His thoughts get more orderly too, and he hopes this time he will be able to control himself. It is still scary to go back though, there is no denying that.

 He drives blindly, with headlights off, leaves the car far enough not to be noticed and sneaks his way to the main gate – the only gate there is to see. There might be other ins and outs of that isolated morsel of a land, but they are well-hidden.

 _I shouldn’t be here_ , an unfamiliar voice suddenly trembles in his head. _This is wrong, I could get shot and nobody will ever know the truth, even Dad won’t find anything. How could I be so stupid? It can’t have been Cora, the only person I wanted to speak to, nobody’s that lucky._

He chokes his apprehension down with great labor and slithers close to the fence. It is cold and, for some reason, soothing to be touching it, to be pinned to the very thing that separates him from learning the truth. Here’s hoping these people are not paranoid enough to put up night guards, or else this is all for nothing.

 _It was her_ , he retorts to himself after a long while. _I saw it in her eyes_.

Two excruciating hours later, Stiles shakes himself awake from a winning slumber when there is a slight movement of the gate door fifteen feet away. A lithe figure appears on the outside, clothed in a dark dress and head covered with a kerchief.

“Cora?” Stiles whispers, suddenly wishing he had a gun, not just a sorry jackknife in his left pocket which he can’t even use in a fight.

But it is her – he recognizes the eyes when she sneaks closer and the moonlight shines over her face.

“I don’t have much time,” she warns in a commanding hiss, but Stiles can’t help but feel relieved – the voice is exactly like Laura’s. “Both of my children are toothing now and making a whole lot of noise, my husband will notice that I am not there if I don’t calm them down.”

“Your husband? Kids?” Stiles gasps, abashed. “Jeez, you’re barely sixteen!”

Cora stings him with a defiant look, “God decides when it is time for a woman to marry and procreate, but I hardly believe this is why you came all the way from Chicago – to lecture a complete stranger about their misbeliefs.”

The anger in her eyes is real, and so is the truth Stiles is forced to face now: he has made this daredevil trip in hope of finding a girl who’d only need one nudge to make a break for a better life, but what he has discovered is not a girl but a young woman with serious responsibilities. No matter how much she might be attached to Derek or Isaac, the children will still be prevalent, always.

“I. . .” No words. He has no words, and it feels _uncomfortable_ to not be able to at least laugh it off the way he always does. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles finally when the iron hand eases the grip on his throat, “I didn’t know you had children.”

She raises an eyebrow just like Derek does sometimes, “Do you find it wrong?”

 “No! No, Cora. It’s just weird, you know, your sister is about thirty and she’s still single, and you are, what, sixteen?”

 “Sister?” Cora frowns, sounding genuinely puzzled. “What sister?”

“Laura!” It takes him several seconds to finally get it. “Fuck, the bastards didn’t even tell you about her, did they?”

She crosses her arms, and a twist of malicious fury passes through her features. “If you disrespect me one more time with such foul language, I swear to God-”

“No-no, please!” He reaches out but takes his hand swiftly back, afraid that she might actually leave if he touches her. “I’m sorry, Cora.”

She pouts her full lips and breathes out audibly through her nose. “I don’t want to hear of any Laura, just tell me if Derek and Isaac are all right. And who are you, by the way?”

“My name is Stiles and I want to help. As for your first question – no, they are actually not all right, Cora, and that is why I’m here talking to you instead of being home minding my own business. Your family won’t speak to Derek, moreover, they are actually lying to the court to protect your reverend, and if you think that’s an okay thing to do – er, I don’t know, I am kind of hoping that you don’t.”

She takes her time contemplating his face in the muddy darkness of the night, her stern look crude, judgmental. “Is Derek with you?” she finally says, more calmly.

“No, he is still in Chicago with Isaac, I have come alone.”

“Why do you want to help, Stiles?”

“Because I care about Derek, about both of them, and I have always stood for what’s right. Well, this,” he waves his hand frivolously to the fence, “what is happening out there – this is _not_ right, Cora, this is the exact opposite of right and you damn straight know it.”

“Why?” her expression is still stone-cold, but there is something in the depth of her eyes, something which he cannot put his finger on, but it is still there, lukewarm and never-healing. “Why do you think I want to help?”

“You helped Isaac, didn’t you?” He gives her the most compassionate look he is capable of, which, he feels, still might not be enough to break the infinite layers of ice this young woman has put around her like a fortress, but that tiny something in her eyes. . . He feels like it is getting larger, more palpable. “You knew what Reverend Lahey was really like with Isaac, you sent him to Derek, where he would be safe. And you came tonight – that is all the evidence I need.”

Cora’s lips quiver as if from agony or from the raging reluctance to word the impulsive answer, and Stiles leans in close, afraid to lose that one moment of weakness.

“And now your communion is pushing the idea through that Reverend Lahey isn’t Isaac’s bio dad, which threatens to bring down the whole case. This is serious, Cora, a criminal will walk free and get the chance to hurt much more children than just Isaac. _Any children_ – I don’t think he’s very picky, so long as they’re young and helpless.”

And then – he can almost hear the crashing, crumbling sound of that icy mass when the realization hits home. Cora’s fingers tighten on her upper arms, and the fear mixed with deep rage are finally there, melting the remains of the fallen fortress. _Finally_. Oh God, she is human after all. There are no tears, of course, but her voice is different now when she speaks, less aggressive and more defensive.

 “I have two little children and a husband I respect. I have spent all my life heeding Reverend’s advice, and Derek, they told me. . . I-I don’t know.”

“Cora, I am not asking you to leave everything behind like Derek and Laura did – and yes, one more time, you have a _sister_ named Laura, and I don’t know what’s the story here, why they didn’t want you to remember her, but that’s the truth. What else are they keeping from you, have you thought of that yet?”

“They will take my children away from me, they can do that.”

Stiles kills the distance between them in one hasty leap and carefully places his arm on her bony shoulders. He could lie to her, of course, he could say that no matter what, the outside world will protect her and her family, but somehow the very thought is repelling him to the core.

“Tell you what,” he says quietly when the tension in her body slightly falters, “I bet Laura and Derek will help you out if you decide to step forward, but if you don’t think that being a hero is your thing and living in fear is – I have no kids of my own and therefore no right to judge you, Cora. However sometimes one has to take risks for the sake of others’ wellbeing and the peace of one’s own soul. Sure it’s tough, things will get rocky on the way, but if going down that road is what’s _right_ – well, I’m not big on this religion thing, but I’m sure God will reward the sacrifice.”

He feels this to be the right moment for his next step and fishes out a brand-new cellphone from his back pocket that he bought the day he made the final decision to follow through with his plan. “Here’s a phone with my number in it, please call me anytime. It’s turned off, I would not be able to bug you even if I wanted to, you can even bury the thing or burn it or whatever. But I really hope to get that call – for Isaac’s sake, for your sake, for the sake of those two kids you have there.”

 “I. . .” she hesitates. “I’ve never. . .”

“Oh. Oh, okay. Here, let me show you.”

When they are done with the basics, Cora shoves the phone into one of the front pockets of her ugly dress, “I really must go.”

For a brief moment, a wave of panic swallows him, and with the most acute certainty he realizes that he failed: he didn’t find the right words, wasn’t persuasive or honest enough and now she will never call. But she is already out of his reach, her gaze a mess of untold thoughts, a thin line breaking her beautiful forehead in half.

“Cora!” he cries out a tad too loudly, but he can’t help the racing heart pumping in his ears and the sweaty panic puppeting him like a rag doll. “You’re not alone. I am about to put my career in jeopardy for the same cause.”

He wasn’t planning on revealing this to her, to anyone, for that matter, but his impulsiveness certainly seems to do the trick – Cora halts.

“What are you going to do?”

There is no turning back now and no time to make up a plausible fake story.

“I work on TV, Cora, and I help people solve their problems. I have a plan to make an announcement on my show, which can cost me my job if the manhunt ceases due to the lack of evidence. There will be some major sh- trouble flying around, especially if your community is serious about suing Derek for that ten-year-old poisoning incident, but I will take my chances. By the way, you should tell me now if your family has something solid on Derek.”

Her eyes darken when she suddenly snaps, the old attitude back, “I was a child back then, I hardly remember Derek’s face.”

They say awkward goodbyes then, and while Stiles jogs back to his car, breathing in full lungs and finally noticing the immense fatigue in his limbs, he reruns their conversation in his head, all the things he said to her. An army of questions attacks him later. Could he have done more? Should he have taken the time to elaborate on Derek’s personality to make her trust him? Will she be brave enough to call? Will it bring any good in the end?

It’s 2 a.m., but Stiles takes out his phone and is one click away from calling Derek when he comes to his senses and throws it in the back seat – a telephone conversation as hard as this is a recipe for a stupid break-up, what is he even thinking? He will come clean in person. Maybe tomorrow, after the show.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might be a little dub-con in this one, although I don't think it qualifies to be called that. Anyway, enjoy!

“Aunt Kate!”

The woman in the most obscene-looking leather pants ever cracks a predatory smile, opens out her arms – and Allison rushes into the embrace like a little girl who terribly missed her mom. She jumps onto the woman, wraps her legs around her small waist and gives her the most inappropriate, considering their relation, smack on the lips that anyone could ever imagine.

“Gosh,” Lydia gasps, “does Scott know?”

Stiles forgets to react. His mind is in two places at once: one realizes where he is and what is expected of him, the other one is falling into darkness, horrified.

 _This isn’t happening_.

Meanwhile Kate Argent’s hands are all over Allison’s back and the kiss turns into an exchange of pecks on the face. An incidental onlooker might think them lovers, and it’s not just the kissing and the obvious intimacy the two share. There is something deeply erotic that is charging the very air around them even after the unbefitting greeting is over and they just stand there close and talk in hushed murmurs.

“I’d tap that, too,” Lydia shrugs with her renowned pout. “If you take away the crazy niece-loving part, that is.”

Danny, who has been standing behind their backs all along, observes, “She is really hot, I’ll give her that.”

“Oh yeah?” Lydia turns to him with a devilish sparkle in her eyes. “So hot she can turn you straight?”

 “Maybe if she has a dick hidden somewhere in those tight pants,” Danny says after a moment of arduous brainwork.

The still sane part of Stiles orders him to grin at that, but after a second he becomes painfully aware of the fact that what he’s actually achieving here is just using his facial muscles to show his teeth. Thank God Lydia hasn’t noticed yet.

“I have to go, you guys,” he says in a weak voice. “I’ve got- There’s some stuff I need to do.”

He hastily disappears behind the door of his dressing-room and collapses into the chair. His body is so tense right now that he can’t put his shoulders down, they just keep contumaciously rising to his ears. He is painfully aware of his back, which started acting up on his drive back to Chicago, and his mind is torn to smithereens.

 _This isn’t happening_ , a voice inside his skull states, rather lamely. _I can’t deal with all of this, I just can’t_.

He doesn’t want to move ever again, doesn’t want to get a grip of himself and begin plotting a way out of this. For a brief moment, he feels that he doesn’t give a damn. Let Derek assume whatever the hell he wants, he couldn’t care less.

Suddenly Danny is there, standing at the door and just looking at him. Stiles heaves a sigh and dares his throat to come up with a serious, threatening tone that must be hiding inside those vocal cords. All he manages is a bleak shadow of it.

“Danny, you can’t tell Derek she’s here and I know her.”

“Why?”

Stiles rubs the bridge of his nose like all those frustrated movie characters. He’s so damn tired of all the fuckups his life is, apparently, sewn with.

“Because she’s evil and he has enough on his plate. This would crush him.”

“No, I get the not-telling-Derek part,” Danny shrugs noncommittally. “For now, at least. But don’t you think he will eventually find out about you being friends with her relative? Why be sneaky about something you are not in control of?”

 _My life is so messed up_. Stiles shuts his eyes. He refuses to think about it. Refuses to even humor the idea of telling Derek now, after what he has yet to reveal to him tonight. Jesus, talk about bad timing.

“Because. Danny, just _because_.”

“This is not a good answer. Listen.” A sympathetic hand appears on his shoulder, but Stiles hardly registers it. “You cannot be held responsible for this, Derek is smart enough to realize that. Give him some credit, will you?”

“Yeah, right. Dude, we’re talking about the guy who openly called me and my whole life pure trash after having watched two minutes of the TV show I happen to host. Even if he likes me or, I don’t know, trusts me, sort of. . . People just don’t change that fast. Derek will _freak_.”

Something must have given him away, because Danny’s eyes suddenly turn sharp, and oh shit, this is not going to go away.

“Did you do something?” Danny demands, and Stiles, in a sudden, achingly present desire to get the secret off his chest, almost spills his guts right there, under that uncharacteristically heavy stare. He even starts fishing for the right phrase to start explaining this whole mess when Lydia waltzes in, unknowingly shattering the moment. (And Stiles couldn’t be happier about that.)

“Geez, I don’t think I know who Allison is anymore. She’s so different when that Kate woman is around. Don’t you think it’s just so wrong, the way she is with her?”

“It’s not like we’re new to inappropriate family relationship. Do I have to remind you about those naughty siblings we had in November?” Stiles tries to play along, but his voice sounds heavy even to himself. Besides, Danny keeps staring the shit out of him, which majorly throws him off his game. “And that guy who fell for his grand aunt? Relationships can be dysfunctional in many ways, but trust me, Allison is not the case here. You should come over to their place sometime and see how she is with Scott. It’s cute to the point of repulsive.”

Lydia answers with a disagreeing pout. “Still.”

“No, no, you’re not winning me over here. Allison might be a little too infatuated, true, but it’s nothing unhealthy. Besides, it’s not like it’s any of our business.”

“It _is_ when it’s happening at work,” Lydia retorts dryly. “I say intervention.”

 “Intervention?” Jackson’s face pops in, turning Stiles’ dressing room into a terribly crowded place. Jackson is in Mode 1 now, which means hardcore ass-fucking for everyone around. “What the hell are you all doing hanging out here like it’s a goddamn day-off? Where’s Allison? She was supposed to come help me with the amplifiers! Danny, go get the crew ready! Stiles, you look like a motherfucking train wreck, what the hell? Lydia, do something about that ugly-ass face!”

He slams the door shut, making a point, and everyone in the room can hear him yelling in the hallway, “Allison, there you are! Enough with the PDA, let’s go!”

“I’d better bounce,” Danny says after they all spend one solemn minute waiting for Jackson the producer from Hell to leave. He stresses, “Talk later, Stiles.”

“Got it,” Stiles manages in a feeble squeak and widens his mouth in a half-ass grin.

Luckily, Lydia is way too busy doing his face after that to nag him about the whole thing with Danny. Lydia is his friend, sure, but they can only talk on a limited number of topics, and it seems that they both feel: this is something too big for their friendship to stomach.

The silence and the monotonous, all too familiar makeup routine works its magic on Stiles, the panic unclenches its claws and lets his mind wander warily over the wreckage that is now his inside world.

Okay, he might have gone a little overboard when he told Cora about his plans to go on the air with the whole Reverend Lahey bit, thus making it official. The idea had only occurred to him while he was shivering on the other side of that formidable metal fence, waiting for her. He had been shocked and scared shitless, but more so – enraged and sick of being a benchwarmer in this game. In hindsight, he shouldn’t even have mentioned anything about him being on television. What is he, an idiot? Didn’t he hear with his own ears what monstrosities Isaac believed about the whole media thing? For fuck’s sake, he used to be afraid of Derek’s iPod.

And now Kate. Kate the poisoner, who is hanging around the TV station like it’s her goddamned palace. Derek is supposed to pick him up after the show tonight, what if he sees her? How long is Kate going to stay? Allison will probably tell Kate that she saw her ex, she might want to stick her fucking nose in his life again, that bitch.

Even if Allison doesn’t blab about Derek, there’s still a good chance of them meeting by chance. Taking that hit on top of Stiles playing a hero and meddling in Derek’s business when specifically asked not to? It’s a slim chance Derek can stomach both news without blowing a fuse. One has to go on the back burner.

 “You’re ready,” Lydia mutters, eyes deep in thought.

Stiles thanks her and hurries out in hope of finding Allison without Kate around. If he convinces her not to say anything about having seen Derek to Kate. . . Although it will be hard to explain why he cares about that, Allison doesn’t even know they’re dating. Still, he has to do _something_ to ensure Kate doesn’t crawl back into Derek’s life and shit all over everything he has built so far. Here’s hoping Allison will make a good call and just keep her mouth zipped till her crazy aunt leaves.

He turns around the corner and suddenly halts, unable to make another step forward. Kate Argent, who is leaning against a wall with a phone in her hands, gives him an all-knowing smirk of acknowledgement.

“Hey there.”

Up close she looks even more enticing: her navy blue tank top reveals a small strip just above the heavy belt of her pants and outlines the perfect form of her breasts, her short jacket gives her a slightly girlish look, but the stylish motorbike boots add a touch of roughness along with the firmly set mouth and stinging eyes. Stiles can’t think of a more inappropriate situation to be having a hot person nausea attack, but there it is, tugging at his insides and gorging up all the normal things he could say to that devil of a woman.

Meanwhile Kate unglues herself from the wall and strolls up to him, hips wiggling, curls that crown her face bouncing with every step she takes. The heavy air of violence and sex intertwined force their way into Stiles’ nostrils and set off an alarm in his lizard brain, but he doesn’t feel the power to move – his body is suddenly lax and weak, as if he were sixteen again, stupid, cornered, lost and feeling deep down that this is the only treatment he deserves.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Dollface,” Kate murmurs, now too close to him for it to be just a friendly chit-chat among two almost strangers. “Remember me?”

Stiles knows he should say something neutral or slightly flirtatious – he has been in such situations more than he is proud to admit, why should this be different? – but somehow it really is, and instead of an appropriate response he lets the word vomit get the better of him.

“I’m twenty three,” he says, stepping away and raising a finger in warning. “Which legally makes you a cougar, and I don’t think women like to be called on that. Unless you are out and proud, but in this case I still must object because I’m totally wearing a purity ring these days, I just forgot to put it on today.”

She laughs heartily at that, but that does not dissolve the tight knot that is kicking and throbbing inside Stiles’ stomach – if anything, it only gets worse.

“Boy, you are a piece of work,” Kate says between small giggles, amused, and Stiles thinks he understands now how Derek could have been fooled by this woman ten years ago: no doubt she is a ticking time bomb, but there’s this sugarcoat all over the psycho inside her. The short jacket, the innocent curls – it all gives her a girlish look, innocent and playful. Talking about a wolf in a lamb’s skin.

 “I like your freckles,” Kate says, “they make you look defenseless.”

“What is this all about, Miss Argent?” Stiles splutters out, taking another cautious step back. “You show up here and make a peepshow out of your reunion with Allison, and now you are hitting on me? Are you on a mission to sleep with everyone on this floor? Because I assure there are _a lot_ of people to cover, and some of them are not that attractive. Or are you just bored from waiting? Maybe I could buy you a magazine or something? Just please fucking stop creeping me out.”

“I bet you like creepy,” Kate wiggles her elegantly thin eyebrows, unabashed, all of her teeth showing.

Stiles doesn’t have the time to react because Jackson shows up out of nowhere and drags him away to deal with some urgent screw-up on the show. It takes about an hour to get everything up and running, and only after that does it hit Stiles.

 _What the hell was that about?_ He growls at himself, but mostly his body when he recalls the total stupor that shackled him upon seeing Kate, feeling the all too familiar mix of energies emanating from her. The memory makes him even angrier. _You’re not sixteen anymore, don’t give that psycho bitch any power over you._

Preparing for the show, all those necessary little details that need to be rehearsed and okayed with, calm him down a little, and by the time he manages to get a word alone with Allison, he’s almost fine.

 “Listen, toots,” he says to her in a private voice so that the rest of the crew can’t hear, “is your aunt staying for long this time?”

Allison shrugs, mind busy with work. “I dunno, maybe. Why? Do you want to hang out together?”

“No, no, it’s just. Well, to be perfectly honest, you get a little, er, distracted whenever she comes around. Can you promise me it won’t affect your performance here?”

Now she pays attention. Her eyes turn suddenly aware, and oh dear God, did he give himself away? He is off his game today.

“Are you implying that I’m not doing my job well?”

“No, no! No, toots. I’m just worried about you. And before you say anything,” he adds quickly, forestalling the objection already hanging from her lips, “I really like your style at work, you’re great, really.”

“Enough with the bull, Stiles,” Allison cuts, “what’s the deal here?”

He sighs. “Okay, the deal’s this. I don’t like your aunt, and I don’t like you when you’re with her. If Kate is here because you told her about her ex and now she’s here to patch things up-”

“What?” Allison cringes. “No way, why would I tell her? She was so heartbroken when they ended things, it would be mean to bring up his name. Wait, did _you_ tell her anything?”

“No, and I’m not going to,” Stiles persuades, heaving a sigh of relief. This is going better than he anticipated. “But Derek happens to be Danny’s roommate, sometimes he comes around the station. Don’t you think it would be wise to keep your aunt away from this place just in case? I don’t want anything throwing you off your game, is all.”

“Oh.” Allison drops her gaze. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

There is no more time for chatter, but when they do a quick run-through, all Stiles can think about is how smoothly that conversation went. He is back on track! At least now he can stop stressing about Kate and focus on the other thing, that being telling Derek about his trip. Which still freaks him out to the point of screaming his head off. Plus there’s Danny, who sklents at him the whole day as if it were his job to be creepy to people. That needs to be taken care of, too. But all in all, things are working out great so far, and Stiles couldn’t be happier.

The gig goes incredibly well. So well, in fact, that even two hours after the show people keep following him around shooting questions and asking for autographs. It usually happens when a group of friends or relatives from a small town where everyone watches Stiles’ show come to Chicago to support someone they know. Stiles understands the interest – after all, the show must have been one of the most thrilling moments in their lives and they are not ready to let it go.

While in the elevator, he keeps talking to several guests at once, flashing smiles and allowing all these people pat him on the shoulder or sneakily touch the rim of his jacket – he has been captured right after the end of the show and didn’t even have time to wash off all the make-up and freshen up, but he fully realizes how important being attentive to fans is. The ones he is currently dealing with are a middle-aged gay couple and their two daughters whose crippled brother was one of the guests tonight. The boy’s story got a happy ending – his girl forgave all his cheating in the bi-curious phase and even let him hang out with his BFF/short-time lover again – which is why the whole family is so excited and thinks of Stiles no less than a mighty hero. The dads are just glad it’s all over, but the sisters might be overly enthusiastic about the whole matter, turning Stiles desperate for distraction.

And as if God Almighty has heard his silent prayers – there is Derek on the ground floor, waiting at the reception desk. The feelings of relief and longing are so intense that Stiles’ knees buckle in a little bit and for a couple of seconds he feels on the verge of falling.

“Excuse me for a second,” he says, untangling from the foursome with one of his most charming smiles, and then scurries over to Derek, who stands glued to a wall, preoccupied with his iPod, nodding to the beat he’s listening to. Stiles plugs one of his earphones out but doesn’t give Derek the chance to return from his music-induced reverie and greets him in the voice which he calls Someone Formal and Boring, “Good evening, Mister Hale, glad you could come.”

He is standing too close and the desire to touch Derek almost gets the better of him. The way Derek is ogling him does not help at all, but somehow Stiles manages to pull himself together. Jesus, what a torment.

“If you’ll just allow me to say farewell to my friends over there,” he waves at the family watching him with amusement.

Derek may not have understood the point of it all, but he does nod and tries his best to quit with the bedroom eyes.

“All right then,” Stiles gives him a sneaky wink and flies back to his fans.

“You’re not fooling anyone with that, you know,” one of the dads says with a warm smile.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mister Herman,” Stiles deadpans because he is not supposed to reveal the details of his personal life to anyone, that’s job policy, “but I really need to run now. It was great meeting you guys. Ladies.”

He gives each of the sisters a gallant bow and kisses the tips of their fingers, making them both giggle and shuffle uncomfortably, then the whole family hugs him in a pile as if he were their most favorite person in the world, and for a moment it is true for all of them.

“Now go get your man,” Stiles hears one of the dads say behind his back and scoffs affectionately.

They make it all the way to the car without so much as looking at each other before Derek grabs him roughly by the tie and tugs him close.

“Make-up!” Stiles squeaks in a high-pitched voice and promptly wiggles his way out of the steel embrace when Derek halts in surprise. “Ha, I totally sounded like a lady just now. But seriously, man, you will get it all over your face and clothes if you follow through with the smooching, and I didn’t get the chance to wash it off my face. It looks gross up close and it smears like a bitch, too.”

Derek pokes a curious finger at his cheek and then looks at it. The stuff almost didn’t smear, but it would surely give in to the intensity of not having seen your hot new boyfriend for a couple of days.

“Sorry, but I won’t go back, I hate to see people again when I’ve already said goodbye to them. Maybe we could swing by my place before we go out? I have the removal on me.”

“My place is closer,” Derek suggests, and did he really have to bite on his lower lip just now?

“You tease,” Stiles mutters helplessly, which makes the cruel fucker only grin.

“By the way, your mouth is open.”

“Just fucking drive already!”

On their way there, Derek places his hand on Stiles’ knee and gives it a light squeeze. The gesture is not sexual, Stiles figures, it is only Derek’s way of showing that he missed him. Stiles hesitates for a brief moment before sneaking his hand under Derek’s and interlacing their fingers. He has never done that before with anyone, even his galpals Lydia and Allison, but he gets the feeling this is where his hand belongs. Both of their hands.

“Those people who hugged you,” Derek says quietly, his gaze focused on the road, but Stiles can still feel that Derek is trying to check out his reaction with his peripheral vision. “They seemed really grateful.”

“It was the family of a guy who got his childhood crush back on my show tonight. He danced for her. It was awesome, considering the guy has one of his legs amputated up to the knee.”

Derek only grunts in appreciation, but Stiles can see he’s impressed. He should just leave it at that, but he wouldn’t be Stiles if he didn’t speak his mind, appropriate or not.

“Guess now my show does not seem so filthy to you, huh?” he wonders a bit teasingly, hoping to get into a bit of an argument and end up being right, but Derek does not seem to notice the invitation to a challenge. And then Stiles’ phone ruins the moment by ringing. The ringtone suggests it’s either Allison or Scott. “Hey, toots,” he smiles, congratulating himself on having succeeded to fish out the phone out of his front pocket without letting go of Derek’s hand.

Then it hits him: Allison must be with her poisoner aunt right now and he happens to be riding in a car with one of her victims. His mouth goes achingly dry at that.

“He-ey, Stiles!” Allison sounds wasted and the voices in the background suggest she is in a bar, which practically calls for some stupid shit to happen. “Are you headed home now?”

“No, toots, I have other plans,” he answers, casting a wary look at Derek, who seems so preoccupied with a BMW trying to cut him that he must not be listening to Stiles’ end of the conversation. “Why?”

There are some giggles and stifled whispers on the other end of the line, and then another voice goes, “Hello, Dollface.”

His whole body stiffens on instinct, making Derek turn in concern. Stiles manages to sell him a fake smile.

“Watch the road,” he mouths at him and, after a few dragging moments, says, “Um. Hello?”

“I will have Allison text you the address where we are now. Come pronto, deal? I’m buying.”

“That’s. . . very kind of you, but I believe I made myself clear earlier today,” Stiles attempts, knowing full well he doesn’t sound half as intimidating as intended. Something deep inside him, however, pushes him into suppressing his irritation, giving in just this once, using less edgy language. Fear, most likely. Stiles is not stupid. Sixteen or twenty three, he is aware that he still has issues with violent people.

Derek turns again, this time with a dangerous glare in his eyes, but Stiles hardly notices – he registers only two things: the way his palms suddenly start feeling damp and cold with sweat and the amused laughter of Kate Argent in his ear.

“Don’t be silly, Dollface, just come down. It’s going to be a _wild_ night.”

 She lingers on the last words, tasting them and passing a little bit of that taste to him. Stiles swallows the dry lump in his throat with effort, but he sounds taut and wheezy when he asks, “Would you get Allison back on the phone?”

She only laughs and hangs up, leaving Stiles cold and struggling with the inward shivering, her husky voice still rummaging through his head like an annoying poltergeist. The phone vibrates in his hand. Right, the text with the address. Somehow this makes him feel like a traitor.

“Everything all right?” Derek asks quietly and squeezes his hand.

“Yeah.”

Stiles tries to sound assuring but fails. The whole drive Derek gives him concerned looks; he doesn’t try to push him into opening up, however, because, unlike Stiles, Derek respects boundaries. Great, now he feels like a total idiot.

 _You don’t deserve him_ , a voice deep inside Stiles’ head cackles, and the icy shiver that follows is too familiar to ignore.

He almost tells Derek everything right there. The ride, Cora, his plans about the show – everything. What stops him is, amazingly, a small detail that he notices only now. Derek is focused on the road ahead, but the right corner of his lips is slightly upturned, as if he were thinking about something nice right now or simply enjoying this ride. Just like that, a warm wave of realization washes all over Stiles, and he thinks, _He looks so happy right now. Calm. Just driving, here, with me. It makes him happy._

And the following thought makes him feel both guilty and righteous in the same maddening second.

_I can’t tell him now. I won’t._

He promises, though half-heartedly, to have the talk first thing tomorrow, but robbing Derek of this tiny island of peace and happiness that he has here, inside this car, right now – that would be cruel. The promise makes Stiles feel a little better, and after a moment of doubt he gives in and squeezes Derek’s hand a little. Derek turns, and the corners of his mouth go even higher.

When they get into the apartment, Laura is the only living soul there to greet them: Danny is out on a date and Isaac is in the room having a therapy session, which was supposed to finish a while ago but didn’t – Isaac must be doing some serious work with his therapist that cannot be interrupted.

Laura is wearing a dress a bit too short for Derek’s taste, judging by the way he scowls at her bare legs.

“This,” Derek declares, pointing at the cigarette in her hands, “is a disgusting habit.”

“Zip it, prude,” she smirks cockily and then turns to Stiles. “So the pretty face is back. How would you like a drag?”

“Um, no, thanks.”

This would be the perfect time to come clean about at least one thing to Derek – yes, he does smoke from time to time but only when there’s company or when he is nervous. Instead, Stiles disappears into the bathroom with a tub of a very expensive make-up removal Lydia once presented him with. There, under the protection of the locked door, he breathes deep with his eyes shut for a whole minute.

 _I’ll tell him tomorrow_ , he presses into the growing unease. _I will. And about the smoking too._

A big part of him freezes at the concept, but he gulps it down and gets to work.

His face, though clearly exhausted, still looks much better without the thick layer of make-up on, which actually makes him look godly only in the bright studio light but in reality tends to turn him into a mummy. He had to undress from the waist up so as not to stain or moisten his clothes, and while buttoning his shirt back up and tucking it in Stiles catches himself wondering if it would be too weird to ask Derek for one of his shirts – something more comfortable would sure be a blessing right now. He doesn’t follow through with it but loses the tie and the jacket, untucks his shirt so it doesn’t look so formal and also leaves the two top buttons undone. (And it has absolutely nothing to do with Derek having texted him yesterday about how beautiful his clavicles were.)

In the kitchen, Derek and Laura are discussing something in hushed voices but break it off when Stiles comes in. A sudden pang pierces his stomach as he wonders with horror if they have found out something about his visit to San Diego, but when the siblings look at him, they don’t seem pissed. If anything, they actually seem to appreciate the dress-down.

“Oh, wait,” Stiles hits himself on the forehead slightly when he sees Derek in his nice black shirt. “We were supposed to go out, why did I make myself all comfy? I need more sleep.”

The siblings share an amused half-smile, and then they hear a door open – Isaac’s therapy session must be over. The therapist, a strict-looking lady with her hair pulled up in a boring bun and horn-rimmed glasses, pays no heed to Stiles and asks Derek to see her outside for a moment. When the woman is gone, Isaac nips into the kitchen and sits meekly between Laura and Stiles, the slouch and the downward smile suggesting that he didn’t have a good day.

“Hey, little dude,” Laura gives him a warm pat on the shoulder, “how did everything go? Have any breakthroughs?”

“Um,” is all he says.

Stiles recognizes the body language of someone who desperately wants to be left alone. He also knows that the best way to help relax someone in such a state is to tell them something personal and mildly humiliating. Stiles has a ton of such stories, and since he allegedly was away visiting his dad, he focuses on of his most awkward years of being a nosy, geeky teenager in a small town.

He starts with his most favorite humiliation story – the one where he got locked naked in a girls’ changing room by some jock assholes. He was twelve back then, and the notion of being seen unadorned by the ladies was so horrifying that he stuffed himself in one of the lockers and waited for them to change and leave. The girls came from their PE class and, naturally, started their regular ritual of feeding the gossip mill. Stiles actually had a good chance of escaping the horror of being discovered if not for his stupid inability to hold his giggles. The sheriff was called in, and the whole day turned into a huge pile of misery for one Stiles Stilinski.

“Well, what was so funny that you couldn’t hold it in?” Derek asks, who got back in time to listen in on the spectacular scene of discovery and is now making some coffee for everyone except Isaac – the guy gets his camomile tea.

Stiles wants to answer truthfully that the girls were discussing the ways to tell what dick size a boy has, but he surely cannot say that in front of Isaac, so he flashes everyone a mysterious smile instead and changes the subject.

“Aren’t we supposed to go out tonight? Why are we sitting in the kitchen telling stories about the good old days like an old married couple?”

Derek ruffles his hair affectionately and places a cup in front of him, “We’ll go in a minute, just finish your coffee first. You look really tired.”

They drink coffee and munch on some trail mix to the soundtrack of Stiles revealing more hysterical truths about his teenage years because Isaac looks so gloomy that no one wants to leave him in silence thinking himself to even more horrific depths. In the desperate effort to cheer the poor guy up, an outrageous amount of time passes, and when Stiles finally remembers to check the time, it shows almost 2 a.m.

“Oh shit,” he mouths and motions for Derek to look at the clock. “You see that? We are totally an old married couple!”

Laura sneers a little but then has pity on them for some reason and takes away the tired and yawning Isaac to tuck him in.

“Say bye to Derek and Stiles now,” she urges in a stupid kindergarten teacher’s voice, “they are going to spend the night at Stiles’ place because I’ll be staying on the couch and they won’t have anywhere to crash, but you’ll see them tomorrow. Right, guys?”

 A shiver of excitement runs down Stiles’ spine and he swallows heavily, shots a wary look at Derek – and then lets out a nervous giggle just like that one time in the girls’ changing room because Derek seems to be exactly as nervous and awkward as him. God, they must look so stupid standing together like this.

“Bye, you guys,” Isaac gives them a listless smile and disappears behind the door.

“Lock the door and use protection,” Laura sniggers and waves them off.

The trip to Stiles’ place is a catastrophe mainly because they had a desperate make-out session on the hood of Derek’s sexy muscle car, after which focusing on driving is an ordeal. Thank God the roads are clear at this time and it takes them about fifteen minutes altogether.

“This is me,” Stiles announces, stopping at his door and fumbling for the keys in his messenger bag. By this time he is missing half the buttons on his shirt (the sexy muscle car make-out session does that to clothes) and there seems to be a badass lovebite ripening on the left side of his neck, but apparently Derek doesn’t think he has done enough damage already – as soon as they are inside, he shoves Stiles right into the nearest wall and gives him another one of those kisses that make Stiles turn into a horny jellyfish (if there even is such a thing). What makes it even better is the complete darkness they are enveloped in.

“I know you’re tired,” Stiles feels Derek’s hot breath on his wet mouth, “but I can’t let you fall asleep just yet.”

Stiles wants to answer playfully that it is fine by him as long as Derek puts his money where his mouth is, but right now he can only pant and moan and say stupid stuff that somehow always finds its way out of his mouth whenever there is something incredibly awesome happening to his body. He doesn’t even keep track of what he is saying until Derek stops whatever magic things he is doing and asks something.

“What?” Stiles breaths out heavily, feeling woozy.

“Why do you tell me to stop all the time?”

 _Oh, that_.

Stiles thought he would have a free pass with this at least till they are two months into the relationship because guys he has dated usually appreciated his sex talk and it was never serious enough to start asking questions. Derek without any doubt likes to be in control, but with all that’s happened to him and with Isaac, he must have mixed feelings about such kind of turn-on.

“Sorry,” Stiles mutters and finds Derek’s face in the dark to give him an apologetic kiss. “Remember when I told you about? . . Well, it’s something I can’t learn to control. Yet, I mean.” He huffs in exasperation, unable to express his feelings clearly. “It’s something you will have to deal with for a while – I’m really self-conscious about everything that involves me naked and panting under someone. Or sandwiched between someone and a vertical surface, you seem to really dig that. That’s just what I say, it doesn’t mean anything. Call that a habit or a kink – I don’t care, just don’t let it actually stop you, because I don’t want you to. Okay?”

 He can’t make out Derek’s face in the darkness, slightly tempered by the street lights – only the worried glimmer in his eyes. “I don’t want to be rough with you if it makes you remember bad stuff,” he says, bare honesty in his voice that makes Stiles feel guilty he is simply not able to have a meaningful conversation right now when his dick is so hard in his pants it aches and every touch is like a burn to his skin.

“Oh no, you can’t strip me of that pleasure,” he drawls into Derek’s ear and gives a teasing bite to his earlobe. “My bedroom is down the hall to the right. Now you can either take me there by the hand like some lame love-struck virgin _or_ you can take me in your arms, carry me all the way there without so much as breaking our kiss even once, pin me to the bed and have your dirty way with me. What will it be?”

He has never said something like that to anyone, and immediately his ears start to burn from embarrassment, but Derek surely can take a hint because the very next moment he does exactly what he is told – and it feels _awesome_.

It hurts a little when Derek throws him onto the bed and clutches his wrists above Stiles’ head, but this is the right amount of pain that gives an extra edge to the whole experience, Stiles catches himself thinking. The next moment Derek presses their groins together – and Stiles can’t think anymore. In the back of his head, he registers that he keeps mumbling his stupid routine of _no_ s and _stop_ s, but this time Derek is not intimidated – if anything, he gets even more turned on.

Stiles is glad the lights are off, otherwise he would feel awkward seeing another person’s hands and lips on his body, just like he always does when it comes to sex. With Derek, though, it is somehow altogether different. It might be the lights or something else, but the deep fear that always haunts him and comes out in small portions whenever he shares his bed with someone else does not awaken this time.

“Weird,” he whispers to himself and then sucks in a shaky breath as Derek bites on the sensitive skin of his hipbone. Stiles’ pants are undone and his boxers are pulled down so low the base of his cock is showing, and he is ready to beg when suddenly everything stops. He can feel Derek’s weight lifting from his body and is about to ask what’s wrong when he hears it too.

The buzzing is incessant. It sounds so intruding and out of place in the middle of the night that at first an irrational fear of accidents and bad news messengers crawls into Stiles’ head; then annoyance kicks in.

“So is this a regular thing?” Derek asks, sitting up on the bed.

“No, not in Chicago,” Stiles hisses through clenched teeth, struggling to get his pants back on. “Only back home, but it’s not fucking Beacon Hills. Hold on, I’ll deal with this and be back in a minute.”

He can’t find his shirt in the dark (as far as he remembers, Derek sent it flying somewhere), but who cares if he answers the door half-naked and quite obviously in the middle of something important? It’s probably some stupid asshole prankster anyway.

He shuts the door to the bedroom and clicks on the light switch in the hall, casting a quick look in the mirror before walking to the door. His lips are all swollen, his hair is a mess and, of course, there is a myriad of small and larger bruises left on his skin. Well, on the bright side, the late night visitor won’t go asking dumb questions like what he was doing taking so long to answer the goddamn door.

“The fuck do you want?” he grumbles, not even trying to look in the peephole – it’s too dark.

“Stiles, it’s me, Allison!” a voice says. “Open up, come on!”

 _Great, what is she doing out so late_?

“I’m kind of in the middle of something, toots, can’t you come tomorrow? It’s really late,” Stiles tries his sleepy voice on her but then remembers where and with whom Allison hung out tonight and hurries to turn the key. “Wait, are you in trouble? Is everything okay? Are you running away from the police?”

He realizes way too late that what he hears on the other side is a series of stifled giggles. There are two of them on his threshold, and Allison looks much more wasted than her aunt, who is holding her by the waist to keep her from falling.

“Hello again, Dollface,” Kate gives him a toothy grin, making a cold shiver run up his spine, and steps inside, Allison in toe. “You didn’t come, so we decided to bring the party to you.”

“Stiles, your hair!” Allison chokes on drunken giggles. “Lydia is going to _slaughter_ you!”

Stiles steps away from them, feeling Kate’s intent gaze all over his naked chest. This is bad. This is really bad. He should say something, tell them to leave immediately, just turn around and be gone, so why in the name of hell does he just stand there gawking?

“Can I have something to drink?” Allison chirrups meanwhile, happy and oblivious. “I am so thirsty right now I could even go for that stupid grapefruit juice you love so much. Do you have any in your fridge?”

“You can’t be here,” Stiles finally musters the right words, but Allison is already making her way to the kitchen while arguing with herself over something, and he is left alone with Kate Argent. “Take her and leave,” Stiles says more firmly this time because he can feel Derek’s patience running thin; the guy could step out of that door any moment now.

“Looks like you have a visitor,” Kate murmurs and licks her lips slowly before lunging forward like a real cougar to catch its prey. “Well, you know what they say: the more the merrier.”

“There is no juice!” Allison’s voice reaches Stiles’ ears through the sound of blood rushing loudly in his temples. “Who drank all your juice, Stiles? I’m just gonna make myself some tea.”

 _This is dangerous_ , his mind says. He knows the feeling of being in close proximity with someone who practically exudes danger, and he also knows he is very bad at handling violent people outside of the studio – he turns powerless and petrified before the untamed madness he can see in their eyes. The madness he sees in Kate’s eyes is something he has already gotten a taste of in the past, and the natural reaction his body and mind want to show is silent obedience. He almost follows the easiest path, too, but one thought shakes him awake – that he cannot be the victim in this scenario; Derek has already played that part for both of them and will again if Stiles doesn’t fix this in time.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he exclaims maybe a tad too loudly, jumping away from her. “Look, Allison can stay if she’s too wasted to go home, but _you_ are not welcome here! I don’t want you here or anywhere else in my life, is that clear enough for you?”

This is a rookie mistake, he realizes the very next second when Kate’s eyes flicker with dark fervor. The first rule to handle the abusive type – never tell them what they can’t do to you. They will own every inch of you for that.

Stiles doesn’t have the time to think of a new plan as he hears the door open behind him and turns, gulping for air and utterly lost. Derek doesn’t even register his presence – he now sees only _her_.

“Oh, wow,” Kate Argent scoffs, sizing Derek up from head to toe. “This is just like an episode from your show, Dollface. Did you set the whole thing up?”

“Hey, fuck you!” Stiles hollers sharply and takes another step back, closer to Derek, who is doing his best to look unruffled, but his eyes betray him, and _oh_ , it hurts so damn much to look straight into them right now.

Kate’s smile gets wider and toothier. How she must be enjoying all of it! Stiles can feel anger, fear and pain all incorporating to form a tremendously heavy knot right where his solar plexus is, and it burns so bad he wants to rip something apart. Why can’t he solve this? Why can’t he just use his words and make everything go away?

“Looks like my little cub has grown and turned into one gloomy-looking wolf,” Kate teases. “Too bad you’re too old for me now, but it would be a lot of fun to share Dollface, don’t you think? Old times’ sake and all that.”

For a split second, Stiles imagines the concept of that, and Derek must be too, because he finally speaks, his every syllable filled with pure loathing, “Don’t drag Stiles into this, Kate.”

“Look at you all protective,” she coos with a hoarse cackle. “Cute. Are you two in _love_?”

Derek swallows audibly and tries to push Stiles behind his back like bodyguards do, but Stiles has had about enough of this.

“No, wait just one fucking minute! What the hell is wrong with you, woman? Why can’t you just cut it off with the bullying already? Hell, haven’t you done enough to him, why do you keep pushing like it’s your favorite fucking thing in the world?”

“Back off, Stiles,” Derek warns in a low voice, glaring at him now, and this is what makes Stiles shut his mouth – not the words, but the fact that Derek is mad at him too.

It hurts.

“That’s so sweet,” Kate giggles in her hand, and the gesture makes her so young, so girlish that for a moment Stiles feels vertigo consuming him.

A perilous silence settles in after that: Kate smirks like a winner, Derek stares at her fiercely, and Stiles feels too discouraged to start another fight. In the end, Allison, who everyone must have forgotten about, is the one who breaks it.

“Hey, guys,” she drawls, groggily holding a steaming mug in her hands. “I made enough for. . . What is going on?” She looks at Derek, who probably doesn’t recognize her (although Stiles can’t tell because he still can’t see his face), then at Stiles, then at her aunt – and all the dots seem to connect in her head in one moment, but in all the wrong way. “Oh no, Stiles, what the fuck? What have you done now?”

“Me?” Stiles gags. “Hey, Allison, slow down, you don’t get it!”

She doesn’t listen. She quickly puts the mug on a shelf, pushing away some of Stiles’ things that were lying there, and hugs Kate compassionately. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Kate, I didn’t know! He didn’t tell me!”

“Wha- Allison, you don’t know anything!” Stiles can’t help but cry out and shoves past Derek to get to her. “Allison, stop! He didn’t do anything to her, _she_ did! Come on, stay with us, don’t go with her, she’s nuts!”

But Allison only casts him an angry look and gently pushes her amused aunt out. “It’s okay,” Stiles hears her placate already in the hallway. “It’s all going to be okay.”

When they are gone, Stiles activates all three locks he has, although usually he uses only one. Then all the power seems to leave him at once and he leans against the door, feeling something monstrously heavy pull him down, more and more every passing second. He doesn’t dare look at Derek. He can’t.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” The words sound phony and wrong when they get out, but he keeps at it because silence is something he dreads much more. “I only saw her once, today at work was the second time. She is an aunt to my friend and colleague Allison, you just met her. When we were in the car, they called and invited me to go out with them, but I said no, you heard me say it, right? I didn’t want to remind you about her; I just thought she would go away after a couple of days like she always does.”

“Always?” Derek repeats crisply.

“She is Allison’s favorite person in the world, I’ve been hearing about her for years. But that’s it, I swear. I really-really-really didn’t want you to find out that I know her. I was afraid you’d get the wrong idea.”

He still cannot muster the guts to look Derek in the eye. There is silence again that follows. Seconds crawl by lazily, and Derek still doesn’t say anything.

The silence is _terrifying_.

“I didn’t want to do anything with her, I blew her off earlier today and then again on the phone,” Stiles hears himself babbling again. “But the woman just doesn’t know how to take a fucking hint. I swear I was so afraid to lose you over something I don’t even have control over that I, er. . . It was stupid of me not to tell you, I know. I’m sorry.”

“No, I don’t blame you,” Derek’s voice interferes, quiet and stripped of emotion. “I don’t think you were obliged to tell me this. I just. . .”

He trails off, and Stiles finally feels it is safe to look. There is so much going on in Derek’s eyes, pouring out of him like a sick wave of deadly fever. He feels – not broken, but cracked, and he doesn’t look strong enough to keep himself together on his own.  Stiles hardly gives it a second thought when he steps closer and pulls Derek in for a comforting embrace. Eventually, Derek relaxes into it.

They end up drinking bitter coffee in the kitchen, which fits the bitterness of silence hovering over them. Stiles smokes, but Derek doesn’t object. The clock strikes four when Stiles goes to bed, feeling that he will pass out if he doesn’t, and leaves Derek alone with his thoughts and his ghosts from the past to keep him company.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to bravekate, if it weren't for her, I would have probably not decided to actually follow through with the idea. She helped a lot with logic, details and the plot, too. Thank you!


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